You're listening to a Muma Mia podcast.

Mamma Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of the land and waters that this podcast is recorded on.

Welcome to Parenting out Loud, the podcast where we bring you the week in parenting culture.

I'm Monic Bowley, I'm Amelia.

Laster, and I am Stacy Hicks.

Hey, before we start, I have a public service announcement for you both.

We've all been saying Birkenstock wrong.

How is it meant to be?

It's Birkenstock, But you're not expecting us to say that like Bartholonna, are you?

Yes?

Yes, The Germans want you to say it like that.

So Damien Wilno is the fashion writer for the City Morning Herald, and he did this great piece.

He went to Germany and talked to the people that make Birkenstocks and he said they're the thinking person's crocs.

I love that.

I love that makes me feel so much better about wearing them literally all the time.

My other favorite part of the article birkenstops are having a moment.

They're very trendy right now.

All these brands are trying to collab with them, and Louis Vaitton tried to collab with Birkenstocks and they said, no, it's not orthopedically good.

Oh I love her.

Never change Birkenstock.

Never change Hey.

Coming up on today's show, what have We Got?

Hailey Bieber has just become my unlikely parenting guru, So I'm going to tell you exactly what she said.

Halloween just gets bigger and bigger every year, but are we missing the whole point of it?

And the new Victoria Beckham documentary on Netflix has got me thinking about why we love some famous kids and roll our eyes at others.

First, Stacy, what stories have we missed this week?

This one blew my mind?

So I had to bring it to you.

Have either of you got a spare thirty k laying around?

No?

Because that's how much it's.

Going to cost for you to get Taylor Humphrey, professional baby namer to name your baby for you.

A professional baby name.

Ah huh ah.

She claimed she just started this out of a passion for babies names.

So it's a very nae passion.

I have a passion for money.

I should start, Yeah, you really should.

But she's in hot demand.

She's in San Francisco, so a lot of rich and famous people use her, and there is a scale to this.

Thirty k is obviously for the more deluxe package.

For two hundred bucks, you can get some personalized name ideas in an email.

For thirty grand you're getting things like a genealogical research system and think tanks to come up with the perfect name for your baby.

And there was this brilliant piece in the San Francisco Chronicle where this luxury real estate agent spoke about how she was about to get kicked out of the hospital because she'd been there so long, but they wouldn't let her leave without naming the baby.

They'd chosen the first name.

They'd chosen the name Mara, they just couldn't agree on a middle name.

So they use this woman on an emergency call to name their baby.

What as I'm sorry, that is such a waste to use on a middle name, like, at least use it on the first name.

Yeah, And do you want to know what the middle name is?

This hard earned money got them really nice name.

I relate to this, though I think boys' names in particular, I found it really challenging coming up with a boy name.

Hard ultimately went with the most popular name of all time, John so maybe we should have used the service.

Well, I just feel like they're doing this because it's like renovating a bathroom, like you could do it yourself.

But if you've got the money, why would you like just leave it to someone who's really into it.

Okay, hear me out.

What if this is a good investment, it's saying no.

It's like price per war price per use of a name comes down a lot.

And also if we're talking return on investment, we talked about this a few weeks ago about how certain names attract certain figures, Like your lifetime earnings can be boosted if you have a certain name over another one.

So that could be worth tens of thousands of dollars.

So maybe spending thirty grand on a name is an investment.

It's a marketing ploy that's going to last a lifetime.

For thirty thousand dollars months, I want them to move in and raise the child for me.

That is insane.

Absolutely not.

Just call them Bobby and move on.

Please cost per use time.

Hey, I've got a story that I just loved this week.

It was a real feel good story.

So year twelve students all around Australia right now, are sitting their final exams.

Do you remember what that moment was like in your life?

It was so stressful but exciting.

And I just love reading stories about students who've overcome all sorts of challenges to get to that point, and this week there was a real cracker in that genre.

Jet Thompson is a kid at Sydney's Mossman High School and he lost his sight.

When he was eight.

He found that he kept falling down the stairs and so they took him to the optometrist.

Next thing they knew, they were at the doctor's office.

He had a brain tumor.

And the very next day, out of the diagnosis, he goes in for surgery and he comes out and he has lost his sight.

And that was at age eight.

He found that he couldn't participate in any of the things that he used to love.

He couldn't play video games, he couldn't play sports, So he poured himself into his academic work.

This is an article on the Sydney Morning Herald, by the way, and he has wound up ducks of his school.

Oh how cool.

And it's also a story about his amazing teachers.

Because he has to do his exams in Braille.

So, for instance, his HSC Maths exam goes for seven hours because obviously it takes a long time to read braille.

His teachers have all earned Braille so that they can better support him in his studies.

This just makes me.

Feel so proud of his teachers and of Jet, and we just want to wish Jet all the best in his exams.

How good.

I loved that story.

I want to talk about Halloween, because Halloween's here and it's a full cultural takeover and I want to go there.

But first I've got some ground rules.

Number one, let's not argue about whether Halloween should be a thing, and number two, let's not talk about how it's too American, and number three, let's not talk about its pagan origins.

Okay, because it's not going anywhere.

It gets bigger every year and kids lose their mind over it.

So what I'm interested in is this.

Some people say it's great, it builds community, it's a developmental gold mine.

There are psychologists who say this is really important because it gives kids a chance to flirt with kind of dark themes and scary things in quite a safe environment, and it improves social skills talking to neighbors and getting out there.

There's this other thought, which is, no, this is just a sugared up stress bomb for parents that are already stretched.

It's an environmental nightmare.

It's consumerism in it which has had so grab your witches brooms.

Let's discuss Amelia.

You have American Halloween experience and you're now here, So where do you land on the spectrum?

So I think that what's happened with Australian Halloween is that it's taken the worst elements of America and Halloween and none of the good parts of American Halloween.

And so of course a lot of Australians are feeling hostile towards it.

So let me explain.

The reason why Americans love Halloween is because it is about getting to know your neighbors.

It is a chance to build community in your neighborhood.

When you have young kids, most of the people you spend time with are other people who have young kids.

But the great thing that happens when you trick or treat is that the kids get to connect with people in very different life situations that happen to live in your area.

And it's often older people who happen to live near them that they would never have had the chance to meet otherwise.

I think this is because in the US there's no real social safety net, So if something really bad happens to you, the government is not going to help you out with it.

So your neighbors, the people around you, have to step up.

And there's a really strong sense of organic community because people know the last safety net between them and crisis other people around them, not the government.

And what happens with trick or treating, and why it's such a genius way of creating that sense of community is that you send kids, almost as ambassadors, to go and knock on doors and speak to strangers and ask them for candy.

This is precisely what we spend the other three hundred and sixty four days of the year telling children not to do.

But on this one day we say, we trust our neighbors enough to send our precious children to their doors to knock on them and to engage with them and to ask for something.

There's a trust exercise there that is very powerful, and I think that's why Americans love Halloween so much.

I don't agree, because I feel like you go and you knock and you get the chocolate and then you're gone like five seconds later.

And in my neighborhood, maybe I'm in the wrong neighborhood, but a lot of people have to drive to other neighborhoods where they really go big with Halloween to then do it there.

And that's what I mean about doing it wrong.

Yeah, the thing in the US is that in your neighborhood there'll be little block parties.

People might do a little barbecue and they'll be like adults sitting in their garden like drinking a beer and waiting for the kids to come by.

And there's also no hostility.

I think I've done trick or treating here, And I know a lot of Australians think of it as a really sort of toxic American import and they roll their eyes at it.

So you're not.

Getting that sense of every single house is excited to greet your kids.

He's excited to give them the came well.

To me, the most exciting bit about it is that you get to have a little sticky beak inside your neighbors' houses.

Like I know you're only at the door, but that bit's appealing to me.

I always want to know what everyone else's house on my street looks like?

Do you even know your neighbors?

Like it's telling that you don't really know what the inside of their houses look like.

Yeah, that's true.

Where great mates with our neighbors on one side, but yeah the rest of the street no.

So maybe this is like an opportunity to open that up.

I do think it's a missed opportunity for us.

So I was a Halloween hater, but thinking it through to talk to you about it.

It has potential.

Right, community is really very much needed now and that's the promise of Halloween, and that sounds like what it is in America.

I just wish the execution in Australia was that.

I wonder if we'll get there, because I think people are really hungry for that connection, Like most of us are raising kids with no time, with no energy, with no aunties, sort of down the road.

So instead of it being about community, it does feel like this just pressure cooker of costumes, lollies, plastic, fake spiderwebs that hurt wildlife.

Like, oh, there's a lot of drama around it, but I think we are desperate for shared rituals.

The thing I like about Halloween is it's a space to do it.

It's a way to do it that's not sporting.

It's not AFL or NRL, it's not political, it's not divisive like Australia Day slash Invasion Day.

So it's non political, non sporting, and so in that sense it has the potential to be quite a good community event in the way that you say.

Yeah, and what you say about everyone kind of being separated, like, I think that's so important.

A lot of us kind of are very siloed and don't talk to the neighbors.

And it reminded me.

This great piece by Tiffany Watt Smith.

She wrote this piece why neighbors are so important in the digital Age, and she spoke about how we kind of all live by that old adage now that good fences make good neighbors.

So we're not.

Really like as long as they kind of stick to themselves and don't annoy us, then they're a good neighbor.

What we need to be doing is kind of leaning into the neighbors around us.

That has to start with a moment, and maybe Halloween is that moment.

Like when else would you just wander up to a neighbor's house and knock on the door and start a chat.

I have a theory as to why I think it's hard for Australians to embrace Halloween.

Apart from the American connotations, which I understand, there's a lot going on in America right now that people probably don't want to see come to Australia.

I'm wondering if it has something to do with the relationship Australians have with property and with where they live.

Think about that old cliche that Australians want a quarter acre block.

They want a house, a freestanding house on a quarter acre block.

That is a dream that is completely out of reach for a lot of Australia, especially younger Australians, who are now likely renting more than previous generations used to, and don't have a connection to the neighborhood that you might have if you own property in it.

Because you know that your landlord could kick you out at any time.

You might feel resentful of that lack of permanence in your neighborhood.

Do you think that's part of why it might have trouble gaining traction here, because people don't feel that they're grounded than in their community because they're having to rent.

I think we've lost our social skills.

I think, particularly post COVID, we've really lost our social skills.

But I think the other point you touched on Amelia and I know the start I said, this is one of the rules we can't go there is the americanness of it, and that doesn't sit very comfortably with us.

And I think it's because the acceleration of Halloween is largely due in fact, to the media that we consume now.

So when we were kids, we had really limited options.

It was broadcast TV.

You've watched Neighbors, You've watched ha Hate Saturday.

But now with Netflix, with YouTube, the dominant culture is American culture.

So Halloween is this kind of prolific runaway train.

It's a prolific part of our kids' media diets.

And so, like you say, it's not going anywhere.

But where it rankles with us is there is this feeling that we are losing our australianness in this.

It feels kind of imperialistic in a way.

But I'd argue that's the same with every big kid's event now.

Don't you feel like they're all on steroids now, like book week, Easter Hat Parade, like all of.

These things that we do.

I don't think it is.

Necessarily an American problem.

I feel like we just have commodified everything to the point where we feel like we have to do it bigger and better every single year.

Like everyone's doing those things to the insagree now.

The Easter hat parade is a great example.

Yeah, I discovered that I need to now own and use a glue gun.

Yes, I have said my man never never decided that she needed a glue gun to make my Easter hat for the parade.

I do think there's an element where children's activities have been turbocharged, and I do take your point once about this feeling that how has kind of been foisted on us as another sort of American commercial activity.

It's hard, though, because I want people to understand that the Halloween that they're experiencing here is just simply not as good as it could or should be.

But I don't know if we can ever get over that stigma of it seeming American.

Yeah, but I think it's definitely onto something with that it needs to come back to that focus of community rather than like going and grabbing as many chocolates as you can get.

Well.

You sent us a great article Stacy this week from the Financial Times that makes the point that we all kind of intuitively know that if we know the people who live around us, it probably makes for a greater sense of stability and rootedness in where we live.

And yet there's been remarkably little researched one into the connection between well being and knowing your neighbors.

But we all kind of know intuitively that that's a good thing.

Yeah.

She told this beautiful story and the piece about how she went from kind of being on nodding terms with one of her neighbors, Jan, to being at the point where they had each other's hoase keys, and she kind of got involved towards the end of Jan's life with a lot of her decisions and medical decisions and letting her family know that we're far away how she was doing.

So.

Not everyone has support nearby, not everyone has family and friends, super clothes, but everyone has a neighbor, so it probably should be something we're exploring more.

Hugh McKay is this amazing Australian social researcher Amelia who does make that link.

He wrote a book about it a couple of years ago and talked about how community is built in small gestures over a long period of time.

So it's bringing the neighbor's bin in taking over some biscuits.

It's just these tiny little moments over a sustained period, not necessarily throwing your hand in the lolly bowl once a year.

I love that takeover some biscuits, because that's not American Americans would say takeover some cookies.

We can all agree that we should be taking our neighbors and biscuits.

Yeah, is there a way to resist it?

Or do we just have to roll over and accept that we're going to be in the shops the day before buying a twenty four pack of Caramela qualas.

Yeah.

I think we do need to accept that, because I think the thing is we can resist, but they're little for such a small period of time, and I feel like, just like with Christmas Halloween, is that time it can be a bit of joy and a bit of silliness and it doesn't need to be so serious.

So as much as we say, oh, it's one of those things where we're buying more stuff, we'll probably all end up throwing together a costume at the last minute and getting out there because at the end of the day, it is a bit of joy with our children and we could alway use a bit of that.

My prediction there's going to be some K pop demon hunters out there on the streets.

Yeah, I think there is going to be a lot of purple braids selling out Foreshore, I now have an unlikely parenting guru, and it's Hailey Bieber.

So a lot of people will know her as Justin Bieber's wife, but they shouldn't because she's really incredible and she's just sold her business road for one billion dollars, like she is no joke.

And she was interviewed by the Wall Street Journal and they were asking her what the most surprising parts about becoming a mama, and she had the most eloquent answer.

Take a listen.

When you become a you change a lot, and I think you don't know what to expect, and I think that's very hard.

Before it happens, you're like I can't wait to go back to blank, or like I can't wait until I feel like blank again.

I think a lot of the.

Time there isn't a going back of sorts.

It's like you.

Become a mom and then you move forward from there, and that's a whole other journey in itself.

I feel like becoming a mom has given me a different kind of like confidence to be more upfront and say how I really feel and like not have to hold back because you're your child's advocate.

And I think it's helped me advocate for myself more.

I love that, isn't it great?

It's kind of like the mental load in the best possible way, Like, once you've got so much on and you've got a child, you go, you know what, I don't care anymore.

These are the things that matter to me, and it kind of brings out fury in a good way.

This is something that no one tells you will happen when you become a mom.

Yeah, you say, oh, your nipples will bleed and it's you'll be so tired, But no one tells you about the moment that you step into like mum mode and it's quite powerful and it's fucking awesome.

So the bit I love about this, why this is so important that Hailey Bieber has done this is because she's saying motherhood makes you stronger, read even better at your job, and that is so important because there are multiple studies out there by psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists saying that there exists a motherhood penalty in the workplace where mothers are viewed as less competent, less committed, and less suited to leadership.

So Hailey Bieber saying basically the opposite, she's an extremely influential, powerful business woman.

Like that is culture shifting and that is important.

Yeah, for sure.

And I think we talk about mum rage a lot, like that's kind of become the new thing that everyone was like, Oh, we never got told about this before, and we do now.

But I feel like what she's talking about is more that being harnessed in a way for your child, Like you do feel like you get really protective over them, and by doing so, you advocate for yourself more as well.

Yeah, I found this the use of her word advocate or advocate really interesting because that is exactly what you have to become for your child.

They can't call the people that need to be called to get medical appointments, they can't talk to the teacher about the educational issues that your child is going through.

You have to step into that and assert yourself even if you've spent your whole life kind of avoiding situations of confrontation.

So I found it really astute of her to point out that in stepping into that assertive mode for your child, you also find yourself doing it more for yourself.

Your personality changes.

Yeah, it does.

I don't want to offend people that don't have children, but and I don't want to use that term like as a mum, but who I am in the workplace, Like becoming a mother made me a better manager.

It may be better at work.

And it's frustrating that the studies say that the bias is the opposite way that people view you as more incompetent, because I think the opposite's true, and that's what she's saying.

Yay, yay, Hailey.

It certainly made me more efficient at work.

And it speaks to this idea of balance between work and parenting in that sometimes I feel like I'm spending too much of my mental energies on work and not enough on my children.

Having to tune in constantly to how much effort you're putting in at work versus out of work, that's not a question that you have unless you're juggling family, responsibilities.

Yeah.

I thought it was really endearing of her to say that, and really touching actually that she said it and was like, it's okay, you can feel this way now.

I loved it, and I loved at the start where she spoke about how you kind of think you'll get to go back, like it's all about once I have a baby, I'll get back to this and I'll get back to that, and that is just never what happens.

And I know I definitely thought that for a long time.

I think I was a bit in denial about the fact that that version of me was gone.

So I like that she was talking about, you know, there's no going back now, there's only moving forward from here, and that is a different version.

Did you feel the same?

Absolutely.

I remember that shortly after my first child was born, I tried to go out for a fancy dinner with the kid in.

The car seat just at our feet.

Oh yeah, And it was awful because even though he was, you know, absolutely appropriately behaved for his age, I felt so stressed out the whole time.

I couldn't enjoy myself.

You know, you often hear people say I don't want children to change me.

Hailey is saying they're gonna change you, and that's okay.

It's okay.

I actually like Hayley.

Now, I don't I go and get.

Some of her peptide glazing fluid because that sounds like an important product for someone who.

Doesn't sleep a lot.

It does.

There's a new documentary about Victoria Beckham on Netflix, and the breakout star is absolutely her fourteen year old daughter Harper.

Yes, she's the only one of the Beckham's four children who was still living at home and so that's part of why she gets a lot of screen time.

But I think she's also on screen a lot because she's just.

Really charming and funny.

Like at one point, Victoria is going to get an award from Harper's Bizarre and Harper says, why is.

It called that?

And Victoria says, well, it's the name of a fashion magazine, and Harper says, I'd always just assumed that it was named after me, and very winning about that.

So it wasn't surprising to read reports this week that said that Harper is starting her own beauty line, and there's been a Hiku by Harper trademark application put in the Sun reports.

Her mum apparently wants it to be as big as Kylie Jenner's lip kits.

I bet she does, And to be honest, it sounds like a great idea to me.

But I did have to check myself because I wondered why I'm cheering on this NEPO baby starting a business, and yet in Victoria and David Beckham's family, there's another quite famous NEPO baby who we all unfortunately roll our.

Eyes at, and that would be brother Brooklyn.

He's tried as a reminder, photography, he's tried cooking, he's tried social media influencing, and rather famously, he's flamed out at every turn.

Yeah, so my question is why are they good NEPO babies and bad NEPO babies?

Yeah.

I think the core of it is about fairness and effort.

I have a theory about this, and I feel like it all comes down to their skill or perceived skill.

So I think we very much have the feeling of you can have it as long as you're good at it.

So if they are Dakota Johnson, who's the daughter of Melanie Griffith, then that's okay because you've proved yourself as a pretty good actress, like you can do it.

Same with Zoe Kravitz's daughter of Lenny kraviatzs.

It's when they take that privilege but don't have the skill to back it up that I think we get our back up about it.

Like, my dad's an electrician.

If I've gone into his family business and become an electrician and been good at it, I doubt anyone would have said anything.

If I went in there and displayed the skills I own, which are none for that, then people would be annoyed.

So I think it's the same in every day life and in the celebrity world.

You have to be able to prove yourself and back it up.

Sure you can take the privilege, but you need to be able to back it up.

I think that's interesting, but I want to throw out that there's some wrinkles in that theory.

So, for instance, Nicole Kidman just went to Paris Fashion Week with two of her daughters, including seventeen year old Sunday Rose Urban, who has walked the runway as a model for Your Nami Watt's Nicole Kidman's best friend.

Her daughter Kai is also launching a modeling career, and I think in something like modeling.

I think it would be wrong to say that we're just assessing their skill in the abstract.

We are thinking about their parents when we're deciding whether or not they're a good model.

Yeah, maybe modeling is a different kettle of fish because it's so subjective.

This is all about branding and cut through and p R.

But why does some of the branding work?

And like the idea of a family business.

Which one works?

Tell me?

Well, for instance, Ben Stiller, he has a new doc comentary out about his parents.

It's called Stiller and Miara and Nothing is lost.

Now, his parents were actors, not as successful as Ben Stiller, but his dad you would have seen and Seinfeld as George's father.

And the whole point of that documentary is he's exploring the ways in which his parents influenced his acting career, both in good and bad ways.

The example he gives is that he really wanted to pursue comic acting.

Remember he was in Zoolander.

We sort of forget that now that he's producing severance and has become so serious, But he used to be a well known comic actor.

And he talks in the documentary about the fact that his mother really tried to dissuade him from that, and he speculates it's because she never had the comedic acting career that she wanted, and so she was kind of putting this all on Ben and saying I didn't get what I wanted in comic acting.

I'm really scared for you, and I don't want you to fall into the same trap.

Maybe it's perceived effort.

Then maybe that's what it is.

That you're wanting people who are really putting in the time, like Ben Stiller.

We go, yeah, yeah, you're fine, you get a part.

It's when they do something like a model, which does have a lot of stigma around it, that we'd go, oh, you don't really do anything, you just walk down a runway.

And I think that is why Brooklyn Beckham gets such a hard time.

There is this video that has lived rent free in my mind for about three years now where he got approached on the street by a TikToker who was like, hey, man, I love your car, what do you do for a job.

Because he's in a one point two million dollar convertible going down Rodeo Drive and he looks at the guy and looks a bit uncomfortable and goes, ah, I'm a chef, and he's like, yeah, cool, and he drives off.

Now that may have been Brooklyn just trying to be very humble and not wanting to say my parents are worth five hundred million dollars, which is really probably how he got the car because he's not actually a chef.

He cooks and films it.

But I think maybe that's what it is that annoys us, is that they handed a lot of privilege, and so we're like, if you're getting that, you better be putting in the work to get it.

And I think that's the distinction.

I hard agree Stacy, because I think at the core of this, this is fairness and fairness something that's really hardwired from an early age.

Like there are studies showing that toddlers even get upset when other people get more cake than them.

You know, kids will often say that's not fair.

It's a very common refrain.

So when we see someone that's five steps ahead, that gets to start five steps ahead, it kind of does trigger something quite primal in us.

So it's not necessarily about the NEPO babies themselves.

It's about what they represent, and that is that sometimes a lot of the time, the system is rigged.

Yeah.

But here's what I'm going to push back on the idea that parents wanting their children to have the best start in whatever they're interested in is somehow morally wrong.

If my children want to go into podcasting or journalism, I'm going to do everything I can to make that work.

Yeah.

And then that's the thing.

If you've got the opportunity there to give your child a leg up, should you or should you let them struggle to get resilience?

Like I think if I look at my eye would help, I would help.

I would use whatever I have it my disposal to help my child get ahead.

Of course, but is that a bad example of like bulldozer parenting where you're just clearing the path for them?

And also, how is this different to the very cozy notion of a family business.

We love the idea of small businesses that are passed down from generation to generation.

We think that's a good thing when it comes to a small business.

So why does that become a bad thing when we're talking about acting or.

Modeling family businesses.

You learn from a really early age that there are a lot of really hard work and most of us are out here telling our kids.

Hey, life's not fair, but you've got to work hard anyway.

Can I ask, have you actually said that to your kids?

Life's not Yes?

Absolutely, I say it all the time.

My parents said it all the time to me.

It's not fair.

I'm sorry, life's not fair, but you've just got to work hard and show up anyway.

And then along comes people who get to skip the queue.

Harper Beckham starting a skincare line.

How hard is she working on that?

Is that just savvy marketing and positioning is Victoria Beckham and her advice is going, Hey, skincare for the eleven to fourteen year old market is absolutely through the roof.

Mecca, Sephora, Alta Beauty all have specific marketing campaigns trying to get these children to buy more products.

Let's shoehorn in on that.

It feels kind of icky, it feels rigged.

That's exactly what you say about skipping the cue.

That's what it is.

Nothing makes us more annoyed than in someone pushes in front of us, and that's what neffo babies do.

I feel like there are two types of parents, and I'm setting aside the famous people here.

There are the parents who tell their kids' life is not fair.

Yeah, this is obviously one of them.

Are you one of those parents?

H I don't.

I don't know.

And then there's a second group that is not telling their children that.

I have not told my children that Mon's I kind of don't want them to know that until they discover it for themselves.

And then what's going to happen when they discover it for themselves and you haven't prepared them for that.

I guess my thinking is that if I tell my children life is not fair, I assume that life won't be fair for them.

I think it's almost superstitious.

I think if I tell them life is not fair, then their life is not going to be fair.

And I realized there might be something irrational about that.

It just feels like too big a truth to put on children.

I just want them to discover it for themselves.

What do you say then, when they scream at you that's not fair?

What do you say?

You know?

To be honest, I think you're really hitting a nerve here, which is I'm probably one of those bulldoze of parents who's trying to get all the impediments out of the way, and when they scream at me about that.

My first instinct is probably to try and fix the problem.

And maybe that's why I'm protecting the Neppo baby parents.

Oh we David and Victoria.

I think that's what's happening.

I'm going to choose this moment to announce that my daughter is launching her own skincare line for the coveted five to seven age group.

It will leachure retinals and exfoliants, I will frankly.

Every week we bring you the things we are loving sick, these random little life upgrades, hacks and tidbits and recommendations that you didn't even know you needed.

And Stacy, have you noticed how much Amelia keeps us guessing?

Like some weeks it's the reject shop, and then the week after it's something very highbrow.

She's a mystery.

Rocks, painting rocks.

He's my favorite.

Yeah, you never never know.

We let her surprise us every week.

What's it this week, Amelia?

This week is a little bit high brow?

Oh okay.

Over the holidays I went down the New South Wales south coast with my family and as everyone knows, when you get out of the city, you look up at the night sky and it does inspire or because you're just looking up there at all these stars that you never see when you're in the middle of the smog filled city.

When we were down there and we were looking at the stars, I downloaded an app called Stellarium.

It's free to use, and it maps the constellations for you.

Because I'm terrible at the constellations.

I can never actually see what they're.

Meant to be.

Yeah, I've got that one.

And my favorite feature of this app is it has a tab called Star Cultures, and basically you can select different cultures constellations, so it has very specific Polynesian and indigenous cultures within this tab, and you can see how even though everyone's looking at the same night sky, there've been these wonderful and unique stories developed by different cultures as to how to interpret them.

And I just love that idea.

And the other great thing about this app is that the animation of the constellation, so you actually literally hold it up at the stars and then it will animate the constellations that you see as you move your phone around.

And the animations are really amazing and it just sparked a lot of wonder in all of us, the kids and the adults.

You had this moment outside looking at the stars.

You had to optimize it by getting your phone out.

Why don't you just look at the stars and let the stars be stars?

And then, Emilia, you're telling me that you're looking at the stars through your phone.

Are you okay?

What look?

As listeners to this podcast will know, I am a proud type bee in a collection of Type a's and us Type bes need a little bit of help telling exactly which the Southern Cross is.

And I'm so sorry that I can't just see it automatically when I look up.

But I wasn't a prefect.

I'm sorry to rag on your wreck, but just look at the stars.

That's the fun.

You get to make shit up.

Your kids are looking at you, go, you know what.

That's the bloody pans.

That's not factually accurate.

That makes me upset.

That's the dog looking down us.

That's the chicken that died last week.

Like that's the fun.

It's fun telling them that the stars are your chicken that died last week.

I'd much rather it just give me little story.

It's more in tune with the natural world.

She had or has chickens.

I certainly can't claim that.

No what's your wreck, mons, I have the world's best kids book that you've never heard of.

Oh it's by Memphox, so you know mem Fox.

She's written Possum Magic, She's written Where is the Green Sheep?

It's not those.

There's nothing flashy or trendy about this book whatsoever.

There's no Gruffalo, there's no bear, there's no piranhas, there's no celebrity writing it, which is such a trend at the moment.

Okay, it's called Hunwick's Egg.

It's illustrated by Pamela Lofts.

Don't forget the illustrators.

It is the most beautiful, melancholy story.

I'm not going to tell you what it's about.

All you need to know is this.

It's so simple that you can read it in five minutes, and it's so profound it'll wreck you for the rest of the night.

What age like, Oh, it's probably for I still read it to my kids, and there's seven so.

It's like Green Sheep not Gruffalo.

Yeah, it's lower primary.

I guess if I ever did a Ted talk, it would be on why this is the greatest kid's book of all time?

And kids call my Roman Empire.

I am obsessed with them.

I love them.

It's this It's Handwick's Egg, the greatest kids books of all time, and it's somehow slipped under the radar, but not anymore.

So read it and tell me why I'm right.

I want to know.

Mine is the Hey Doodle drawing mat.

So I bought one of these in like a cute gift shop up in the Blue Mountains, but they sell them online and they sell them in kid stuff shops as well.

It's essentially like a drawing mat that's made of silicon, so they do all different patterns and all different designs on them, and you can roll them up really tiny, like they would fit in a tiny little handbag.

With the pens that come with them.

They can color them in and then you just wipe it off with a wet white and they can start again.

So I have a few of them.

I'm not mum.

Like any cafe I go to, I take like a canvas bag for a crab a I know, bring activities to the cafe.

I bring activities.

But if you bought nothing else, this would be the best one to bring because they can't like mess anything else up with it because it just draws on the Silicon Mats, female owned Aussie business.

They're really cool.

They do them for Christmas as well, like they do all different designs.

They're awesome.

Yeah.

My library, my local library's got one, like a big one.

Mine's that you a parent who brings activities to the cafe?

I already know the answer to this.

Not only that, but we have car activities too, cafe activities, Yes, I am yep.

Do you not have a box in your car full of like delightful activities?

Jacy is our container expert.

Yeah, knows all about parenting containers.

And now I don't have a box in the car.

I haven't phoned with apps on it.

I'll make you one and before we go, I also wanted to throw in one more reco this week.

It's a brilliant podcast on the Mum and Mean network called She Built That.

So it's hosted Yeah, it's really cool.

It's hosted by Analys Todd and it's created as a co listening podcast, So the aim of it is that it's entertaining for you and entertaining for the kids.

So really good one to listen to in the car or at night if you're doing a bit of a wine down.

And don't want screen time.

And in each episode they speak to an inspiring woman.

So there's one that's like Catherine Bennell Peg so she was the first ever Australian astronaut qualified under the Australian flag.

So they talked to all these really inspiring women, young women, a lot of them are teens, about the kind of future they built for themselves and it's just really lovely.

Yeah, very cool.

So it's cat she built that.

And what age do you think that's I'd say like school age kids, So from you know, five on ones.

That's all we have time for this week on Parenting Out Loud and a huge thanks to all the people that follow us and that listen every week.

We love hearing from you.

I think we are still in the early days of this show, so you're all early adopters, right, So if you're listening to this show now, you're like on the inner circle.

And this means you should.

Tell people about it now before someone tells you about it.

Tell your group chat, tell your book club.

Be the one who says it first, like I love I love discovering stuff first, so you can say, hey, there's this show.

It's a lot like MoMA mea out loud.

It's for parents, but also it's for non parents too.

There's a lot of non parents that listen.

They'll say, hey, you're caol.

What's it called And you'll say, oh, it's called parenting.

About that, you'll be like, look, it's an out lout spin off.

They didn't have thirty grand to spend on a naming service, so they just did it themselves.

Okay, and maybe they were tired and they were like, you know what, just call it that.

It's just good for CEO.

So that's the inner workings here.

A big thanks to the team on this show, Tessa Kotovich, Leah Porges, Sashatanic and the group ep is Rip de Vine.

Have a great week.

We'll be back in this feed next Saturday morning.

Bye bye,