The New ‘Mummy Wine Time’ & CDs Are Sooo Back

0:02 Welcome to Parenting Out Loud, the podcast for parents who don't always listen to parenting podcasts. We like to bring you the news and the trends and the culture and what parents are thinking about.

0:12 I'm Monique Bowley.

0:13 I'm Amelia Laster.

0:14 And I'm Stacey Hicks.

0:16 And coming up on today's show, an Aussie dad told off his kids and started a debate about the limits of gentle parenting.

0:23 And why is there a CD player in the central aisle of Aldi? And why do we all want it?

0:28 I want it so bad.

0:29 Same, same.

0:31 Are Australian mums really doing cocaine to take the edge off? A scandalous new report says yes. But first, before we get to all of that, a speech from the headmaster of a Sydney boys' school has gone properly, properly viral this week. This was in the wake of allegations around sexual assault involving young men. So Michael Blake is the headmaster of St Joseph's College in Sydney, which is Australia's largest boarding school for boys, I believe. And he stood up at a school assembly and he opened with this, it's been a difficult week to be a man. But then he flips it. He does the old switcheroo. And he says, I hope that what I just said felt jarring, he told his students, because it's been infinitely harder to

1:16 be a female. He walks these students through what women actually live with, watching your drink, texting, tell me when you get home. wondering if you're safe with the boys that you hang out with and if they're going to respect your boundaries. But then it gets to the bit that I really like. There will be moments in your life when being a good man will cost you something.

1:39 It might cost you popularity. It might mean handing a phone back and saying, delete it. It might cost you a friendship because you were the one person in the group prepared to say, no, this isn't right. That takes courage. I would argue that it is a far greater test of masculinity than almost anything else we ask of you.

2:01 Because character is not revealed when doing the right things easy. Character is revealed when you choose the right thing. Stacey, why did this speech travel like it did?

2:13 It felt like there was two waves. I think one of them is just that it is a brilliant, brilliant speech. And I just love Michael for being one of the people that's done this and said what needed to be said.

2:22 There were two waves with this, which were the first.

2:25 Was originally because it was inspired by, as you said, like a spate of sexual assault allegations. One of them was around three teenage boys who were alleged to have raped a teenage girl in an alleyway in Sydney. And so that is kind of what inspired his speech. But then the second wave came with the Cornell University allegations, which have obviously hit the headlines recently. If you're not familiar with that case, it centers around an unnamed woman who they're just referring to as Jane Doe, who says she was sexually assaulted by several members of a fraternity at Cornell University over a seven-hour period.

3:01 It's a horrific, horrific story.

3:03 And what I love is that Michael was saying he wants to make sure that whenever a woman is around one of his students, they feel safe because they are there and because they know that those students will do the right thing in those situations.

3:14 What he's saying is step up, that this is going to happen. At some point in your lifetime as a man, you will come across a situation that demands you to show some character here. And it feels like a great call to arms because to a generation of boys. And I think that's why it travelled is that there was the collective sigh, I feel, of mothers and perhaps fathers going, thank God, thank God the people in authority, thank God the people leading our students are taking this on.

3:48 This is in the news cycle.

3:49 It would have been very easy for the school to just say, BAU, you know, keep going.

3:54 We're in the business of education.

3:56 But for him to stand up and make this kind of statement, I think that's why it travelled, is because these are the things we need to hear right now from people in authority and from people leading our boys.

4:08 I also think we're looking for scripts.

4:10 We're looking for things to say to the boys that we are raising. And part of what's so distressing about the Cornell case, obviously it's still being adjudicated in the courts, but What we know for sure are that there were text messages on Snapchat, messages on Snapchat that dozens of young men were privy to that talked about a woman in a.

4:35 Way that is simply unacceptable.

4:38 What I loved about what Michael said is that he says it's on all of you young men to step up, as you say, Mons, and to intervene in a situation where things are not right. Switching gears now, there's a big new interview with Kim Kardashian in the UK Times, and it contains a step-by-step guide in how to parent the Kim way. First of all, I just want to remind you she has four children with Kanye West. North is 13, Saint is 10, Chicago is 8, and Psalm is 7. She has primary custody of them. And while the interview is taking place, she's constantly being interrupted by Chicago and Psalm, which is kind of relatable, right? That happens when I'm interviewed for a major newspaper profile. So Kim says, though, that she's a very hands-on parent. She

5:26 takes those four children to school every day. She picks them up every day. She has dinner with them every evening. She is, quote, intermediate strict. which I feel like is a good aspiration, intermediate strict, and she reads to them every night.

5:38 So at this point in the story.

5:39 Hey, don't shame me, Kim, for not reading every night.

5:42 I'm starting to feel a little bad about my own parenting.

5:46 But then she drops this.

5:48 The trick to doing all this while running her billion-dollar fashion empire is that she has one full-time nanny and four in rotation. So there's always childcare coverage. And that made me feel a lot better. I want more celebrities... to be really honest with us and explicit in their honesty about exactly how much childcare they have.

6:08 Right, Stacey?

6:09 I would have thought this number was higher. If I had this much money at my disposal, you could have a nanny per child just there in the background waiting in the wings in case they ever need a snack.

6:20 Like, I'm surprised it's not more.

6:22 But yes, I do love when celebrities are blatantly obvious about what care they have and how that care works.

6:29 Because I think it's fascinating. Our question.

6:31 even to the mums in our lives is, well, what's the intricacies of how you make this work? Like, how do you specifically do this? And how do you fit all those puzzle pieces together? And so I love that the celebrities are just like, money. I make it work through money. And you don't have the same as me.

6:45 And so therefore, you can't be the same.

6:47 As me, right?

6:48 There was actually an article recently in the Wall Street Journal about the demands that are placed on nannies for the 0.1%.

6:56 And it was very fascinating.

6:57 It mentioned that there's been a trend in nannies for that group away from a sort of five-day-a-week model where they work their 40-hour week and then they go home to a model where they have multiple nannies who rotate in and out. So they'll have continuous coverage for seven days and then that nanny will take seven days off and then another nanny will step in for seven days, thereby ensuring always a continuous coverage.

7:21 Not just on weekdays.

7:22 Wow.

7:23 So that's what I'm hoping to do soon. Must be nice. Look, I've got another.

7:28 Piece of celebrity news that I just had to bring today. Ben Affleck, who I think is the most cerebral of all movie stars.

7:38 Which stuns me. You said this to.

7:40 Me earlier and I was like, what are you talking about?

7:42 The man that walks around with the Dunkin' Donuts cup?

7:44 Him?

7:45 He gave a genuinely moving interview to GQ's Zach Barron on Zach's new podcast where he talked about what it was like to lose both his parents last year in quick succession. What you'll hear here is Zach asking him the question, and then Ben drops a piece of wisdom, which I defy you to remain dry-eyed while listening to.

8:10 I can't know anything I'm about to ask for certain, and you and I don't know each other like this, but it seems like you're having a very complicated year. You have this movie coming out now, you sold this AI company, and then I believe you lost both parents this year? Um, that is an awful lot. That's really intense.

8:28 How are you doing? How are you feeling?

8:29 It's yeah.

8:30 I mean, it's interesting. It is, it's a big year of life, right? Like to have both your, our parents died, uh, like just two months apart, April, beginning of April and beginning of June. That's a lot, man. Often the end of life doesn't, isn't full of wisdom and resolve, you know, stuff you haven't fixed in life stays unfixed. Like in the case of my mom, she had pretty extraordinary and brave.

8:50 I mean, she's an amazing woman and, and her, uh, Death really did cause me to even more deeply and fully appreciate her and her life. But it's, you know, yeah, you face that stuff and it makes you think, okay, how do I want to spend the rest of this time? Because you realize there's not all that much of it.

9:07 I mean, my parents were lucky, right? They lived, you know, long lives, longer than the, you know, one's expectation is, whatever.

9:15 That's kind of what you get.

9:17 Like, that's it. I remember my mom said to me at one point, yeah, She said, I had a great life and I have no regrets. But I thought 83 years would feel like longer.

9:31 Isn't that beautiful? I thought 83 years would feel like longer.

9:34 You got one.

9:35 You're ruining me with that.

9:38 You know what he's going to do?

9:39 He's going to go get back with J-Lo after that. He's like, you know what?

9:44 Fuck it.

9:45 Life is for living, J-Lo, and he's going.

9:47 To sweep her off her feet.

9:48 He will.

9:48 You watch.

9:49 Jen Garner's fine. So, yeah, I think that's likely.

9:53 Where are they on the Affleck, J-Lo? Are they together at the moment or not?

9:57 I think they're just one big, happy, blended family.

10:00 Family.

10:00 Oh, are they?

10:01 Yeah, this is the impetus for him to get back with her.

10:05 I also think, like, imagine being Ben Affleck and thinking you're on a press tour for your movie.

10:10 Yeah.

10:12 And then having the full existential crisis on a microphone.

10:16 I love it.

10:17 This is new media, baby. This is podcasting.

10:20 I love it.

10:20 I love that, man.

10:22 Okay, ladies, settle in. And men, whoever's listening, settle in.

10:28 I want to bring you a story this week that had such a big reaction. I've actually not seen anything like it in my last year as editor of Mamma Mia or really before that. This article was called The Cocaine Mums of Suburban Australia. And the story was written by the brilliant Erin Docherty off the back of these recent wastewater data, which is how they can tell these things, that shows that cocaine consumption has hit an all-time high in Australia. And it's mostly occurring in middle class suburbs.

10:58 But while male usage has largely plateaued out, women are closing the gender gap on cocaine usage. And I promise I won't talk numbers the whole time, but the most worrying trend they were seeing is that young women in the 18 to 24 category jumped from 8% to 12%, which is actually overtaking male usage in that category. And as Erin writes about, if it's being normalized in that group, that is the next group that are kind of heading towards parenthood now. And they're saying, obviously, the numbers are hugely underreported, especially for the 30 to 40 to 50 age groups, because of a lot of stigma, obviously, around taking illicit drugs. So people in those that have better careers, established families, they don't want to admit to anything like

11:45 this because they're worried about the ramifications of that. But when she spoke to psychologist Carly Dober, she was saying anecdotally, yes, she is seeing lots of parents of school-aged children who are using illicit drugs, particularly cocaine, to cope. And it's kind of become... in a weird way, the new self-care.

12:05 And we'll get to why that is. We want to talk a lot about that and what that's kind of saying about the culture at the moment. But the most interesting part about when this story came out was the reaction. So if you work in social media, this will probably be very obvious to you. But if you don't, I just want to spell it out in that The algorithm doesn't really care anymore about likes or comments as much as what it cares about shares. So it's whether you care enough about something to send it privately to a friend.

12:34 It's those conversations that are happening in the DMs is what the algorithm cares about.

12:38 And this story went off.

12:41 I'm talking 13,000 private shares in a matter of days. And that's very high compared to what you see in other stories, which was kind of proof in the pudding that this story has resonated. And of course, there's never going to be 100% accurate data on this, but it's looking at all of those factors combined is saying this is a trend. This is a really worrying trend that we're seeing for parents to cope.

13:05 Mons, you have a theory as to why this is happening. Can you share it with us?

13:10 Yeah, I think this is, and I'm going to steal your words, Stacey, you said this in our meeting before this episode, you said this is mummy wine time 2.0.

13:21 And, you know, that mummy wine culture of.

13:24 The giant novelty wine glass, the it's wine o'clock somewhere, those sort of jokes, culturally that's gone a little bit stale, right? Because we know more about alcohol now and it's sort of problematic to talk about alcohol and wine time as a stress relief. But you think about what wine time signified for mums and mums would always say the same thing.

13:51 It's escapism, it's relaxation, it's stress release, it's like a button on the day. It's like the kid's stuff is done, now it's time for me. And I I think culturally it's really interesting that every era, if you look back, every era seems to have its own version of a substance that performs this role for women. So in the last 10 years, it's been mummy wine time. But like my nana, rest in peace, used to say, I need a Bex and a good lie down.

14:22 And a Bex was an over-the-counter painkiller. It was like an analgesic. And this became a.

14:26 Cultural phrase, an Australian phrase that you'd have a cup of tea, a Bex and a good lie down. And it was associated with the grind of domestic life in the fifties and in the sixties.

14:36 And then.

14:37 After that, you know the phrase mummy's little helper, that was a pharmaceutical relaxant. Things like diazepam or benzos, they were widely prescribed to women in the 80s for anxiety and stresses associated with the domestic grind.

14:59 But which little helper I think says so much about the times we're in because the difference between benzos and wine and then cocaine is that cocaine is a stimulant. Why do you think it is that these mums, the wastewater mums, why are they turning.

15:21 To a stimulant?

15:22 What has traditionally been thought of as a party drug Yeah, well, I think this is just a reflection of this optimization culture that we talk about all the time.

15:31 And then it's that now women are so busy, they're going, I don't have time for a hangover. I don't have time to stop. Like my day is so full. And so they're looking at this and chasing that high. But as we know, you know, these illicit drugs give you that spike, but that becomes harder and harder to chase and it's sending people down this really dangerous road. But it was kind of proved by, you know, by the shares, by the anecdotal stories that were in this piece, but also there were addiction coaches in the comments of this story saying, can confirm, this is right.

16:03 What about the legality issue? Like, I would have thought that mums who have a lot to lose... would be concerned about doing something illegal. Yeah, and I think that's the most worrying part about this. But Carly spoke about the social contagion aspect and how that can happen in communities. So often it's that it only takes one person to be speaking about this, you know, offhanded, like it's not a big deal, that it then starts to normalise in that community and kind of catch on, which is the biggest problem of all and probably why these figures are continuing to rise.

16:40 It's time for another good dad of the internet. And today's submission is a Sydney dad called Jesse Chain. And he was filmed on TikTok giving his kids a diabolical dressing down after they climbed the pool fence to retrieve a ball. Let me paint the picture if you're listening to this podcast. He's sitting on the lounge and in front of him are his three children and the little one in the middle should be about four years old.

17:08 She's crying. And the title on the screen is Don't Think They'll Be Climbing the Pool Fence Again. Take a listen to the level of absolute dad in this video.

17:20 Do you understand how bad this is?

17:23 Good.

17:24 I want you all to understand it is not a joke.

17:28 Pool safety is no joke.

17:32 It's so dangerous.

17:33 If ever anything like that happens again, what are you doing? We have to ask.

17:41 No, you won't be doing that crap ever again.

17:45 You'll ask us to get the ball for you.

17:47 Understood?

17:48 And going in the water, anything like that, you will always make sure someone's watching you. If you want to swim, I want to swim, can you come watch me? Never should you ever be swimming without a parent watching you.

17:59 Ever.

18:00 Anyway.

18:02 Now it's.

18:05 Your fault.

18:06 Thank you.

18:06 You can go play it this way or this way. And have a good think about it. I love you all.

18:21 So good.

18:22 It was widely praised in the comments. This is excellent parenting. Like there's not many things that I'm like, yeah, frighten the shit out of your kids. But pool safety, I'm like, go hard, Jessie.

18:32 Great job.

18:32 Yeah, but even with that, obviously there are people who ruin everything for everyone. There's always going to be a vocal minority that have something negative to say. But I was surprised by the volume of people in the comments who were saying, that they thought that this was aggressive, that this was overly aggressive, that the way he was speaking to them was too harsh. And people saying, especially that little one, she won't have taken in anything you said because you were yelling. But the response that came back at that, which I loved and didn't think I would see in context with this story, was people going, no, this is gentle parenting. This is what everyone gets wrong, is thinking that gentle parenting is speaking to them in

19:11 hushed tones always.

19:12 It's not.

19:13 It's setting a clear boundary, showing that you love them and moving on from it. And that's exactly what he did.

19:19 So I loved it.

19:20 That almost people were in the comments kind of rebranding it in real time going, no, no, no, just so you know, if you're thinking that this is aggressive, it's not. This is what we should be doing to keep them safe. And if you think this was too harsh, then you are being too permissive with your children. It sparked a really interesting debate on where that line is, I think.

19:39 Yeah, it's authoritative.

19:41 Authoritative, yeah.

19:42 How do I even say that? Not authoritarian.

19:45 Yeah. So authoritarian would be telling them that they're bad because... they did this one irresponsible or thoughtless thing, but he's pointing out the boundary and then asking them to stick to it.

19:57 Yeah, yeah.

19:58 And I think the mistake people make with gentle parenting is, or any parenting, we don't even have to call it that, just parenting generally, is thinking that there can't be levels to it. Like you've kind of got to pick, you're either a yeller and you yell at them about everything, but then nothing will cut through, or you're kumbaya and you're kumbaya about everything, but then also nothing... can cut through and I think what he's kind of showing is that you need somewhere to go with that like you need them to know that you're more serious about the pool safety than you are about like the snack dropped on the floor like this is a matter of life or death and I love that he was just like yeah,

20:33 you're doing this. Never do this again. Those kids will never, ever go near that pool fence. And I loved people being like, oh, now I feel like I need to ask you to come around while I swim as well.

20:44 And I'm 30 years old.

20:45 So it worked.

20:47 I love you all.

20:48 I love you all, fuckers.

20:51 I was at Aldi the other day.

20:52 Some mum's do cocaine, I promenade the center aisle of Aldi.

21:00 That's how I get my kicks.

21:01 Best stress reliever I've ever heard.

21:04 And I stopped in my tracks in front of what can only be described as a boom box. It was like Aldi had read my mind because I'd been lightly thinking that I needed to get one for my kids. And that's because CDs are back. Why do they suddenly feel so right?

21:20 I knew I shouldn't have thrown mine out if I'd just held on another five years.

21:24 I have the original pressing of Spice by the Spice Girls.

21:28 Oh, wow.

21:29 You can come over and listen to it on my Aldi boom box. It's not just me.

21:32 The UK retailer John Lewis says that sales of CD players are up 96% since July, which seems like a lot.

21:40 I had to go out the back and blow the dust off of them.

21:43 They're like, what?

21:44 You want what?

21:46 They say it's because in the UK at least university students are buying them for their rooms. Their favorites are the K-pop band BTS, but also Olivia Rodrigo, Olivia Deen, Ariana Grande.

21:57 And look, they've always been people who fetishize records. I think we've probably.

22:00 All dated or are familiar with a man who describes himself as a DJ and who claims that records provide a more fulsome auditory experience. But CDs are cheaper and also CDs are from our childhoods. LPs are from a different childhood. So it kind of dovetails with this sense that everyone wants to go analogue again. Wired headphones are also back. I knew that ever since I saw a picture of Jennifer Aniston wearing the one, like the white cord headphones.

22:28 I do miss those.

22:30 There's a brand strategist in the Guardian article. He says that the ultimate sign of cool now is someone walking around with a portable CD player and wired headphones.

22:39 But don't they remember it was actually quite annoying to walk around with a, like a Discman, as I would have called it, like, because it would scratch and skip the songs.

22:48 Yeah, it's not good, but it is cool. It is cool. Mons, why do you think this is happening?

22:55 This is the great unplugging. This is a movement that we are seeing. It's much bigger than just CDs. It's bigger than landlines because we are, we're seeing the rise of CDs. We're seeing the rise of DVD players. We're seeing all these companies spring up with like little landline phones for kids. But I think it is way bigger than nostalgia because it's easy to go, oh, of course we're nostalgic for it. So we want it. But I read an article today about how gen alphas are selecting this.

23:25 They preference CD players.

23:26 They want this.

23:28 And what it speaks to is that it's sort of counter-cultural now to listen to things slowly, to consume things deeply, to consume things intentionally. So there's two things happening, I think. So the first thing is that parents are going, hang on. I want something that's not connected to the internet.

23:50 How about that?

23:51 Like a CD, you don't have to log into anything. You don't have to sign over your data. There's no algorithm watching what you're doing. It's very offline, right? And the other thing that I think we're nostalgic for is limits on things. So technology has toppled over, right? We've hit breaking point because it used to be this really incredibly exciting thing where everyone was like, wow, the world's going to open up.

24:15 To us and we'll have so much choice. And that choice has come.

24:19 And everyone said, I don't know if this is working for us because what we're seeing with these algorithms, with this flow of information, the infinite scroll, the choice, is that our brains are changing. And the way you can just get something better in one swipe, our attention spans are dwindling. There's always just another TV show to watch, another song, another hit of dopamine. And so these old devices give us something that I think we're craving, which is less choice. And more intentional consumption.

24:56 Herbie Huff wrote a piece in Business Insider this week titled, My 8-Year-Old Listens to CDs. It's One Parenting Decision I Haven't Regretted. And she lists a number of reasons why she's replaced Spotify with CDs. She wanted to avoid AI slop. There's a lot of that floating around on the internet these days in music. She noticed that her daughter had become mesmerized with the short videos they play on Spotify rather than listening to the music. And then she says the final straw came when dozens of playlists popped up in the search results with NC-17 looking playlist cover art.

25:28 I looked down at my phone screen filled with anime seductresses and said enough. She says that what she's noticed about amassing this small CD collection for her daughter is that she's stopped having to say no and constantly negotiate.

25:40 Yeah. And I loved how she described it as, she said, if streaming was a sprawling trash pile filled with needles, CDs are a playground with a beautiful fence.

25:50 And I think that is how.

25:51 We kind of remember it now through that, you know, through our rose colored glasses is that it was such a simple time and you could sit there and sift through all of your CDs and alphabetize them or have them in one of those cool towers.

26:03 And own them.

26:04 That's the other thing.

26:05 Rather than stream them, you owned that music.

26:08 And not to be just served content, as you said, Mons, through the algorithm. It's to be making a considered choice and to be going... This is what I'm choosing. This is what I'm telling you I like, not the other way around. Because I think you are getting fed more and more slop, as you said, Amelia, where you're going down those rabbit holes and never getting to truly enjoy anything.

26:29 And this feels like it's bringing back what music was originally intended to be.

26:35 Yeah.

26:36 I know I talked about this already, but one of the best things I did last summer was buy a DVD player and a bunch of DVDs from the op shop. And the reason was because I just got sick of the infinite scroll on Netflix and the arguments over what we're going to watch.

26:50 With DVDs, you say, there it is, choose one. And then when it finishes, that's it.

26:56 It is over.

26:57 The credits roll and there's nothing popping up saying, come and watch this next.

27:01 There's no like an enticement to stay on the screen. It feels very final.

27:05 That's a huge trend now. I'm seeing that pop up more and more in videos now is parents going and thrifting old school TVs, you know, that actually had the back on them with the built-in video players as well to do the exact same thing, Mons. And the return of landline phones too. Like we're getting those tin can phones now that are available everywhere so that kids are, you know, actually talking and enjoying things at a slower pace.

27:29 I love it.

27:30 It's our way to like claw back a bit of the control away from the screens. And also like this isn't technically legal, but I think what kids these days are really missing is the art of a burned CD. Like we're not meant to promote doing that. But there was something so beautiful about making your own mix CDs with all the songs you like on it. And I just love that this choice is coming back for them.

27:53 If you are listening to this on Spotify, no judgment. No judgment at all.

27:57 Leave us some comments of what you would put on the Parenting Out Loud burn CD.

28:02 Yes.

28:03 Tell us your favorite nostalgic song.

28:04 What's the soundtrack of Parenting Out Loud?

28:08 From promenading down the Aldi Middle Isle to the other things that we're recommending this week, it is time for recommendations.

28:16 Stacey, what have you got for us?

28:17 I was so excited to recommend this. I stumbled into the lounge room after putting my daughter to bed the other night and my husband was watching this documentary and I did one of those things where I was like, oh, what are you watching? And an hour later, I was still sitting there absolutely transfixed.

28:31 I loved it.

28:33 He actually made a good decision and watched something good this week. It is called 70 Up. So it's the last documentary in installments that have run for 63 years. This started back in 1964. This sounds so boring. I promise it's not. This filmmaker interviewed 14 seven-year-olds across all different social backgrounds and locations in the UK. And he asked them, things about what they wanted to be, whether they thought they would marry, whether they would have children.

29:01 And every seven years, he went back to these same 14 children to see what they were doing, where they were at, ask them about the same things, see where they're like and where they are at in their life. And the very last installment was always intended to be 70 Up, which is the one that's just come out now.

29:18 So you can kind of skip all the other ones and just watch 70 up because they go back through and kind of flash back to the things they said when they were 7 and 14 and 21 and 28. So it includes bits from there.

29:30 It includes all of it.

29:32 So you don't need any prior knowledge of any of the other docos. It is so heartbreaking at times. He asks really beautiful questions and really brutal questions. Sometimes it's like, do you think you've lived up to what you thought you would be? Do you think you could have done more? Is this the decision you would make if you went back again? It's just so fascinating to watch people People who were, you know, essentially born with a silver spoon in their mouth at very privileged boarding schools and to see what they thought they would be and what they ended up being and to see people who were in children's homes that didn't have families and where they took their lives. One man in particular, Neil, I would just

30:14 sob every time he came on the screen. He just had the most... fascinating journey of kind of feeling like he didn't belong anywhere. And so every time you see him, his life is so different to the time before, whereas.

30:25 Others have followed a very clear trajectory.

30:27 And I just, I just think it is such an interesting take on class and ambition and it's brilliant. It's on SBS on demand, so you can watch it for free. Loved it, loved it, loved it. Yeah.

30:39 What's yours, Monzi?

30:40 Oh, mine's going to sound very basic now. Girls, it's, It's 11 weeks till Christmas.

30:47 Shut up. No, it's not.

30:50 It is.

30:50 I have a small job I want you to do this week. Not you two. I mean, everyone.

30:54 Okay.

30:55 It's called a battery box because it's going to save your ass on Christmas day. Here's what I want you to do. Go to a hardware store or go to Amazon. I don't care where you go. Get yourself a little plastic box and you're going to stock it with the greatest hits of batteries.

31:10 I'm saying double A's, triple A's, duh, of course, we all know those.

31:15 I want you to also get some C's and then I want you to get the LR44 button battery and the CR2032 coin battery.

31:25 I will put links in the show notes for this. Yes, ma'am. That's not the important part. This is the important part.

31:31 You're also going to buy what's called a precision screwdriver set. This is these tiny little screwdrivers that get, you know how the battery compartment on toys- Oh, because they're all locked in now. They're locked in now because of toy regulations, because of button battery regulations. They have to be really secure.

31:47 Who has a tiny precision screwdriver around the house? You do now because of the battery box. So, and the other thing I want you to get in this box is a tiny pair of scissors, like a good pair of little snips, because on Christmas morning, toys now have like 40 cable ties when you unwrap them. And so you'll be completely sorted. I want you to put it all in a box- and label it battery box, even Bowley's battery box.

32:12 Are you going to do this, Amelia?

32:13 No, and I don't want to cut Mons short on battery regulations, but are you finished, Mons?

32:19 I'm done.

32:20 I actually will do this, Mons.

32:21 You know me.

32:22 I will take you up on that.

32:23 I'm surprised you haven't already.

32:24 Yeah, true. It does sound like me.

32:26 Okay, I'm going to talk about something completely different, which is a sauna hat.

32:31 What?

32:31 Both of you expressed complete anger. confusion about this idea so often these days instead of catching up with friends over drinks because drinks are bad for you as mons has discussed and also our bodies are rejecting them actively in in our um midlife stage i am trying to go to the sauna with friends getting some heat in getting a sweat in you're.

32:54 Both still looking at me like i'm just Is this hat for you to.

32:58 Wear to and from the sauna?

32:59 This is a super cute hat.

33:00 It's from this Australian company called Sina and it's a hat that you wear in the sauna. It's merino wool. And it is so cute that sometimes I do wear it to and from the sauna. It allows you to stay in the sauna for longer. It protects your hair because it gets very dry in there. And then it looks incredibly cute and it's $ 80 and it comes in three different colors.

33:21 But how is it keeping me in there longer? Because it's something about.

33:24 The thermodynamics of your head and I don't understand.

33:27 You're putting a.

33:28 Hat on your head, a wool hat on your head.

33:30 That's going to keep your head warmer.

33:33 This makes no sense.

33:33 Can you trust me on the science here? If you put a wool hat on, if you put the hat on your head, you can stay in the sauna for longer. I don't know why.

33:40 Okay. All right.

33:41 Maybe the wool's got some sort of oils in it that protects your hair.

33:44 Okay.

33:45 Where are you saunering? Is there just like dial a sauna? Is it just like saunas in Sydney? What are you doing?

33:49 Yeah, there are saunas in Sydney, Mons.

33:52 You just book in and what, you all go and sit in there with your girlfriends?

33:56 Yes.

33:56 In your bikinis just sweating in front of each other?

33:59 Yes.

33:59 Yeah.

34:00 It's in the suburbs too, Monzie.

34:02 I've got them around me everywhere too. I love it. Maybe I need a hat.

34:09 The heat here is very dry over summer. That will be my sauna.

34:12 I think we can say that recommendation-wise this week, we were all very much on brand.

34:17 Yes, perfectly on brand.

34:19 Yeah.

34:19 That's all we have time for this week on Parenting Out Loud. Thanks for listening to the show. FYI, we have a newsletter now, a sub stack, and it's Stacey's job now to do it and she's freaking out because we don't have enough people following the newsletter yet.

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