Mamamia Out Loud: An Argument About "Inclusive" Leave

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Mamma Mia Out Loud!

Hello and welcome to Mamma Mia Out Loud, what women are talking about on Friday, April

the 28th.

I'm Holly Wainwright.

I'm Mia Freedman.

And I'm Jesse Stevens.

And on the show today, should you get paid days off work to support a friend who's lost

their pet?

The new set of inclusive leave rules we can't agree on, plus one of the internet's most

hated men has deployed a big weapon in his comeback arsenal, one of the internet's most

loved women.

And our best and worst of the week, which include a bright orange wedding dress, a little bit

of toxic positivity and dancing.

But first, what I discovered today I am very passionate about is wearing jeans in your

own home.

I came home from something and forgot to immediately change upon crossing the threshold

of my door.

And I looked down, I realized I was wearing jeans.

And I was like, how long have I been wearing these?

It's disgusting.

I do not pay a mortgage to wear jeans in my own home.

It's blankets for pants or bust.

There are two reasons and two reasons only to wear jeans in your own home.

One, you have company over.

Two, you are having a family photo shoot done.

And if you know someone who wears jeans in their own home, we might need to check their

freezer for something weird.

Women apparently in particular who wear jeans in their own home can't be trusted.

I agree with that entirely.

Do you agree with that entirely?

I do.

Do you never wear jeans at home?

No.

I have never, ever considered this.

I wear jeans in my own home all the time.

Okay, no.

I've got a reason for that.

No, no, no.

Two things.

First of all, I did when I was working from home because to me putting on jeans is like

right.

It's the distinguished moment between the weekend and the week.

But my other thing with you is that because you're someone who doesn't mooch at home

a lot, unlike Jesse and I who are big moochers, you're always going in, you're going out,

you're going to socialize, you're in the country, you're going to be in your stupid

garden.

Me, I sort of think of what people might do.

You live a much more in and out life whereas Jesse and I, we're home for long stretches

and to wear jeans at home, it's a little bit like wearing shoes in your own house.

It's just odd.

Right though, because I work at home three days out of the five working days and on

those days, I get dressed, I have a shower, I put jeans on, I put like not my slubbiest

t-shirts and things, whereas on the weekend, walking the dog and doing whatever, like I

have pants with elasticated waist.

No.

But I can't wear the elasticated waist pants on work days because what could happen?

Yes, you can because I only see you from the top up.

I cannot believe you would put jeans on.

No, no, it's mental.

Psychological.

No, no, no, no.

The idea of getting up, having a shower, putting on jeans and shoes and going about

my inside day is one of the most confronting, upsetting images.

What about a bra?

Oh no, no, no, no, no, no.

Oh my God, I couldn't.

If I was in my little home office that I built now in like my PJ pants and a t-shirt, no

bra.

Oh my God.

I couldn't.

I couldn't work.

No, really?

Yeah.

How long have I worked?

How long have I worked?

I've even got a pant on.

I often don't put pants on.

Yeah.

Do you know what I mean?

That's the differentiation in my mind.

I can't believe that.

If I'm wearing like the leisure clothes, I'm doing leisure things.

If I was spending a day inside, I couldn't put anything even like tights, like anything

that was.

Your books are so enormous.

Yes, and they need to run free.

A publishing company called Hardy Grant announced a bunch of new leave entitlements for their

employees recently.

They range from menstrual leave to fertility treatment leave, gender transition leave and

even pet bereavement or pet illness leave.

We'll unpack what that means in a second, but firstly, who or what is Hardy Grant?

They're actually an independent publishing and media business who employ 300 staff across

Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, London, Manila in the Philippines and Berkeley in the United

States.

Before we talk about the extra leave that Hardy Grant is introducing for their employees,

let's just set the table about what leave everyone is entitled to.

If you're a permanent full-time employee.

If you're a permanent full-time employee, you are entitled to 10 days of personal slash

care's leave.

That's your sick leave, your child is sick leave, your mother is sick leave, whatever

it is.

You are also entitled to a couple of days of compassionate leave, which usually is around

deaths or funerals that you might have to attend.

Then you have annual leave on top of that, which varies depending on what it is that

you do for a job.

Hardy Grant director and co-founder Fiona Hardy, when she was explaining this leave,

said that these changes are all underpinned by inclusivity.

They seek to meet the needs of our diverse workforce.

Some of the different leaves that are going to be introduced by Hardy Grant are menstrual

and menopause leave, fertility treatment leave, which applies not just to the person undergoing

fertility treatment, but also their partner, gender transition leave to support an employee's

transition to commence living as a member of another gender.

They are also giving more wide-ranging definitions for First Nations employees around what family

and household means.

This will be broadened according to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander kinship rules.

The other one, which actually attracted a little bit of criticism, not criticism, but

a little bit of eyebrow-raising, was broadening the use of personal leave, which seems fair

enough for broader family, close friends and pets.

If you have a pet who needs you due to an emergency or is sick or needs to go to the

vet or whatever, they can now use their paid leave to do so.

So when I read this, I came at it through the lens of an employer.

And my reaction was, well, the great news is that there's going to be so much more leave

to be had.

In fact, it will be unlimited because if everybody implemented all of these leaves, there would

be no businesses that could afford to actually run because nobody would be at work.

That is not how I read it.

We have been desperately trying to get the sort of specificity about these by contacting

Heidi Grant.

We haven't heard back from them yet.

But what we're trying to work out is if you do get additional leave, I think we would

assume that maybe there's a few additional leave days in there.

They have confirmed these days are on top of those baseline leave days, but we're not

quite sure whether you can take...

Yeah, we don't know how many.

How many?

We don't know for example...

Is it unlimited?

Can you get five menstrual leave days a month?

I would be very surprised.

I would be too.

Two fertility treatment days and then a pet leave day.

We don't know.

No, we don't know.

This is what I find interesting, right, is that practically if you are transitioning,

that is really valid leave under our current umbrella.

It's just not specifically stated.

And so I was thinking...

What do you mean?

You mean it's already covered under...

Yeah.

I guess personally.

Personally.

I would think any reasonable employer, if you went to them and said, this is what I need

to take leave for, they would say, yeah, absolutely.

Same with menstrual leave.

Like, I've taken a day off for period pain before.

And so I know it's the one we keep raising our eyebrows about, but me, a freedman, when

my dog went missing, he told me to take a day off.

That was pet leave.

Exactly right.

Yeah.

But what is interesting is that if you are in...

And this is our workplace and every workplace is different and it absolutely depends on

your employer.

If you go in and you say, I need to take a week of leave in June because I am getting

fertility treatment, under the current laws, your employer can absolutely say, no, because

that's not considered.

Or not paid for sure.

Or not paid.

That's exactly it.

Or sometimes I get such a shock because this isn't the world I live in, but I have a mate

who works in a really male dominated sort of engineering job.

And he said to his employer, my wife is having a scheduled C-section.

I would like to put in five days carers leave for that.

And he was denied it because they had some clause that said that basically you have to

be sick and you've got to call them on the day.

And he was like, but I'm trying to give you a heads up so that you can plan for this.

There'll always be monsters, right?

There'll always be awful employers who don't do the right thing and they will probably find

it hard to find loyal and good employees.

But the law supports them.

So the question is, when you have something to tap to, when I can say to you, I know

I took two days off from menstrual leave, my manager is being really mean about it

or whatever.

I can then tap to the piece of paper and say, I'm entitled to this.

And I'd say, just as you would say, there'll always be monsters, employers, there will

always be people who'll take the piss out of this, but the vast majority of people will

not.

No, I'm going to play devil's advocate and say, so most of these leaves are weighted

towards women.

Now, the publishing industry we know is weighted towards women.

Most of Hardy Grant's employees, I would guess the majority of them would be women.

From menstrual leave to menopause leave, fertility treatment leave, carers leave, all

of those kinds of things.

If I'm looking at this, and if this, you know, Hardy Grant can do what they want, like this

is obviously something that they've seen as a way to retain existing employees, attract

more employees, like go for it, they're allowed to do whatever they want.

If this becomes a baseline expectation, will we have a situation where employers will say,

I'm not going to hire a woman, but this is not gendered, you're putting a gendered lens

on it.

Of course I am.

Menstrual menopause, some of this is not because the stuff around fertility is saying we want

both partners in this situation to be able to take leave.

Yeah, but most of it, I'm saying most of it is going to disproportionately impact on women's

ability to access more leave than men's.

So therefore, if you're an employer, and you have to make a decision about two people

who are equally qualified, are you not going to choose the men?

I would suggest that it's actually illegal to give women more leave than men, so I don't

think that can be the case.

You know what I mean?

Like I don't think it could be possible to say, female employees get access to 50 days

leave a year, and our male ones get access to 20.

That just isn't going to happen.

Well, it is, according to this, because menstrual and menopause leave, while I do recognise

that there are some trans men who still menstruate or experience menopause and might require that,

it's almost entirely that's a leave category that will apply to women.

And also, when you look at things like carers leave and fertility leave, yes, it's open

to men who are supporting, but again, that disproportionately affects women.

So no matter what you say whole about how legally it's open to everyone, you will still

be making those decisions in the same way that employers are no longer able to go.

I'm going to discriminate against a woman because they're not allowed to do that.

I know your position on that, but I think that you're not allowed to discriminate when

you're hiring based on men and women.

It's actually against the law.

I don't think we can argue this based on some employers acting illegally.

Well, no, it's against...

Any more than we could argue this based on the idea that...

Hang on, there's the law and then there's actually what happens.

So an employer could easily hide behind, but they were both qualified and he just was better

for the job.

But do you think that that employer is likely to have these regulations?

There's more if this is the baseline expectation.

So what if, and this is where the nuance has become important, what if paid carers sick

leave goes from 10 days to 12 days and it includes menstrual and fertility treatment

and whatever else?

Why do you need special leave?

Like why does your boss need to know I've got a gale force seven period with clots today

rather than just I'm taking sick leave today?

Because I think it's because of the law.

I think it's because there are people who are discriminated against for taking maybe

more leave than the person sitting beside them.

But the reality is that the average employee in Australia is not nearly taking the leave

that they're allowed to take.

And the women need more leave.

But I think that broadly speaking, so Hardy Grant, this is in the news because of that.

But a lot of companies are reexamining their leave policies.

They want to attract smart young employees.

And every single study and every single report you'll read about Gen Z in particular and

what they value at work is that they value being seen as more, they're there for more

reasons than a paycheck, right?

They want their values reflected all those things.

They also are asking for their lifestyles and their life stages to be more recognised.

So it used to be very black and white, you know, you've got maternity leave if you had

a baby, parents might get away with getting a bit more care as leave, but non-parents

wouldn't.

Whereas I think that putting all this in writing to my eyes, it's more symbolic than anything

else.

It says we recognise your lives are complicated.

We recognise that parents aren't the only ones who do caring work.

We recognise that you might have times in your life where you're struggling with various

things and we see you.

I think that this is a massive kind of exercise in from a cynical lens, virtue signaling, right?

It's saying if I'm deciding whether or not I want to work for a company and I go to their

leave policy and I see that I'm allowed to swap out some public holidays that I might

not agree with, that my partner can get a couple of days off to support me when I'm

going through a miscarriage or fertility, I'm going to think that's a good, caring

employer and I'm down with them.

And that's really what this is about.

And it's encouraging more transparency and saying we will support you no matter what

you're going through.

Because if you are a First Nations employee and sorry business in First Nations communities

is very different, you might have to go into state.

And the nature of kinship is that it's not sort of businesses around after someone has

died.

Morning, exactly.

And it's not how we might think of your mum, your dad, your sibling, right?

It's more complicated than that.

And what we don't want is First Nations employees having to either not take the leave or lie

about it or feel like they can't tell their employer that they've got to go away.

The fact that that recognises cultural differences.

Diversity is really good.

I think that's really helpful.

Something else that they did, which is interesting too, and that, you know, we've tried at Mamiya

and other people have as well, is allowing people to exchange public holidays and work

on those and then take different days of public holidays.

One of those that is much talked about is around January 26th.

But they could also be religious holidays, right?

Yeah, exactly.

So if you're Muslim, you might not want to have the day off on Christmas or Easter if

you're a Jewish person as well.

So or if you just don't really want to celebrate Easter.

The challenge that that can have in some workplaces.

And it was interesting that ABC was recently in a Senate committee and they were asked

because they offered for their staff and they think this is about 8,000 people at work at

the ABC.

How many of your staff chose to work on January 26th and swap it out for a different public

holiday?

The answer came back three out of 8,000.

Now at Mamiya, it was way more people.

The challenge that that can present is that you then have half the people working or some

of the people working and some of them not.

And then it becomes quite disruptive.

But maybe this customisation of your leave and work is just going to be the new normal

and what everyone is demanding.

Hi, this is Alice.

I just wanted to say thank you so much for being in my youth for so long.

You are absolutely amazing team of individuals that come into my life three times a week.

You would always give me this advice and then I remember I said to you on the way home,

I thought what's wrong?

You just seemed down and you let it all out to me and you just, you didn't feel strong.

It was work staff and the internet and it was all those things.

But then it got me thinking I felt so unsafe with you feeling unsafe because you've always

been like, you have for like, since I was like 21.

James Corden is going into early retirement, kind of.

He marked his final carpool karaoke episode with Adele, who became visibly emotional over

his decision to return to the UK.

I didn't know he'd ever left.

You're not very up on James Corden, are you, my friend?

He's one of those celebrities that's in a black hole for me, like Demi Lovato and Tom

Hardy and all those Tom people.

He's English, right?

And he became very, very famous in England for a really successful sitcom called Gavin

and Stacey, which is hilarious and brilliant, blah, blah, blah.

We're getting an Indian.

What are you fancy?

Chicken Boona, lamb Boona, prawn Boona, mushroom rice, bag of chips, kemen and a nine-puppet

ums.

I'm just going to stick it on the table, you know.

Whoa, right.

Okay.

What is it about a group of people ordering an Indian or a Chinese or something that is

somehow unexpected to eat your own food that you order yourself?

Like, why do we have to, why are we all just...

Well, because it's nice.

No, it's not.

Not for me.

And then he went into some theater and stuff and he was, he's a comedian and he, he was

very well liked and respected.

And then he made this move to LA to host a talk show, which everybody lost their minds

about because that is like, oh, wow.

He made it.

How long ago was that?

Eight years.

He's mates with Prince Harry and stuff, isn't he?

Yeah, yeah.

We're going to have a great day.

Just pay the fare and hop on up, okay?

You know us roars.

We don't carry cash.

Eight years.

He's been there for eight years doing The Late Late Show and the thing you would know

about that because very savoury shows, and he led the way on this to an extent, is it's

not really about the show anymore, it's about the viral moments.

You may never have watched The Late Late Show, but you would have seen Carpool Karaoke.

So that's where that came from?

Yes.

Oh, I thought Carpool Karaoke is a segment on The Late Late Show.

Adele was one of his earliest on Carpool Karaoke and they've always bonded because they're

both from the UK.

They both made the move to the US and they're just good mates.

Hello.

It's me.

I was just wondering if after all these years you'd like to meet.

Just have a drive around.

Hello.

Oh, thanks for this.

I appreciate it.

It's going to be fun.

It's going to be fun.

What I'm interested in is cancellation over saturation and perhaps what is now an attempt

at rehabilitation.

Corden obviously exploded in 2015 in the US, right?

And he could sing and he was funny and he was self-deprecating.

Snippers are going viral on YouTube.

You've got Mariah Carey, Justin Timberlake, Michelle Obama, Brittany Spears, everyone's

on the show.

And he had that rare ability to make every celebrity likeable, which Graham Norton is

the only other one, I think, does that very, very well.

And then something happened, which is he reached peak saturation.

He was in everything.

He was in a movie called Into the Woods, Peter Rabbit, Cats, The Emoji Movie, The Prom, Cinderella.

He was hosting The Tonys, The Grammys, and this is all in eight years, very small period

of time.

Then in 2017, a website called The Tab published an article titled, Actually, James Corden

has always been a dickhead.

And that's when the tide changed.

He got that about.

I love that.

He got Ellen.

He got full Ellen.

And there were real examples.

He's even admitted it during Gavin and Stacey fame.

He said he was rude to his agent and people around him.

And then a story went viral on Twitter about an incident on a plane.

Do you guys remember this story?

No, I do.

Yes.

I don't know if it's true though.

We don't know if it's true, but it just.

Just a rumor that took on a life of its own.

It's part of the narrative that James Corden is sitting in business class and there was

a woman with a crying, screaming baby and they walk into business class and they're seated

next to James Corden and everyone around him went, Oh my God, poor James Corden, right?

And he was so polite to this woman and the baby.

And then at the end of the flight, they were getting out and the woman turns to James Corden

who had his headphones on the whole time and just was doing his own thing and said, Can

you at least help me with my bag?

And it became clear that this woman was his wife and that was his child, right?

So that was the story that kind of turned him into an asshole.

Then last year.

It was so unfair to be honest, because who knows?

Has he ever been asked about it and has he responded?

I think he's denied it.

But there's been other stories that he has said, Okay, I did do that.

So the balsasar story.

Not that long ago was the one about the fancy restaurant in New York where the owner came

out and said he's a horrible person and he's banned.

Yes.

And even like Mel B has come out and said he's awful and so he's rude to wait stuff,

all that kind of stuff.

That all comes out.

The brand that he had built, which was this kind, lovable, friendly Brit.

Very much like Ellen.

But yes, positivity, joy, singing, dancing, silly, and what I want to know is,

was this oversaturation, this buildup of James Corden and him retreating back to the

UK inevitable?

Or do we reckon that this is a man who made a bunch of mistakes and this final move with

Adele was about, let's try and get her on board to rehabilitate my image before I disappear?

What do you think, Holly?

I think Adele, because she is a celebrity with a lot of likeability.

Everybody loves Adele.

You very rarely hear anything bad about Adele, right?

What do you think it is?

Well, it's because she's insanely talented and successful, but she's also very funny

and interesting.

Lack of pretentiousness.

But to your point, she doesn't do everything.

She's very scarce.

Like everybody goes, oh, Adele.

You know what I mean?

Like everybody likes her.

She disappears for years at a time.

She doesn't have a diva reputation like some other singers do.

I would take issue with the fact that possibly, predictably, that returning to the UK is

a retreat.

I think that probably living in LA in that world for eight years is pretty awesome and

that you've finally gone screw it.

I'm taking the family home.

I want to do something else.

He says he wants to go back to doing theatre and, you know, for a queer person.

Do you think he had a choice?

I don't think that man had a choice.

No, I think giving up late night TV is a smart move because late night TV is dying, as he

rightly says.

He says that they live and die now, those shows on the virility of their clips.

People are not sitting up at midnight obsessively watching late, late shows.

So I don't think that it's the status that it once was.

And I think that if you're a creative person who wants to do lots of things, eight years

is plenty of time to give to a job like that and go home and do something else.

But I think there is no question that his image has taken a massive battering in the

last couple of years because, particularly in Britain, everybody loved him when he invented

Gavin and Stacey.

And one of the rumors here is that he didn't really, and it was his female co-star, Ruth

Jones, who is also brilliant, but he got a lot of the status.

And so there's one of the places the rumors come from is that he kind of stole her glory

on that front and then went off to LA and became a big star.

There is no question that his likability has been smashed.

And I think it's really interesting because we often talk about how likability is so important

for women.

I would argue that in this day and age, it's very important for everyone because we see

people being canceled at various levels of cancellation for really serious things and

also for just not being a very nice guy, being rude to a woman on a date, saying something

rude on that kind of stuff.

So I think that likability has never been more important.

I think that what's really interesting is I don't think your average person had any

idea until this Adele video that's gone viral this week that he and Adele are besties.

And this is my last ever time that I'll do this.

And it's blown my mind that you've done this for me.

You're one of my best friends in the whole world.

And you are mine.

I'm going to miss you so much.

I love you.

And we have had the best times here.

Oh my God, we really have.

Our friendship and our family's friendship is absolutely not.

It has nothing to do with distance and time.

I know.

I'm just not ready to come back yet.

Otherwise I would come back with you.

Because in it she talks about how you helped me through my divorce, we've helped each

other through mental health struggles.

I think that for a lot of people they go, oh, if Adele's friends with him, he must be

okay.

The halo effect.

I agree.

There's definitely been some missteps.

But I don't think.

What have the missteps been?

You are very qualified to talk about this.

You are our James Corden correspondent.

Even I know that because your episode of canceled went gangbusters and you got an email from

James Corden's publicist.

Publicist who works bloody hard.

I'll tell you that.

He does.

But putting out fires all over the internet.

He said he thought it was funny.

Well, there are some celebrities that you'd never have another celebrity come up and say

they're not a nice person.

Is that scary spies?

Yes, it's scary spies.

What did she say?

She just said he's not a nice guy.

I've crossed his path a million times.

She said it about a couple of celebrities.

He just had a bad reputation and the bouts his arthing, the way that he dealt with it,

the way that he treated the weight stuff.

But I think you used to be able to get away with that stuff, right?

Oh, absolutely.

David Letterman.

You didn't have to be a nice person.

No, I think it's true.

David Letterman, good example.

I mean, there are long lists of supposed crimes of David Letterman's sheet.

But when he was at the height of his powers as a late night talk show in the 90s, not

he's no one cared that he didn't let his stuff look him in the eye, that he was, you know,

rude to this person, rude to that person.

But now you can't get away with that.

You can't.

And the point is that oversaturation didn't exist to this degree 20 years ago.

So it happened to Jennifer Lawrence and we all looked at her and went, you're annoying,

not personally, but the culture outweighed.

So after everyone was obsessed with her.

Yes.

And she was the, like, it girl.

She was everywhere.

Hollywood's it girl.

And then she fell up the stairs at the Oscars and it was like, how adorable.

She's so real.

She's so great.

Oh, wait.

No, we hate her.

We hate her.

The culture.

Same thing with Taylor Swift.

Anne Hathaway.

Anne Hathaway.

Ellen was the other one.

It gets to a point.

The other one was Meghan Markle.

She was on top of the world and you see anyone that's risen.

And often it does seem like a woman, but it's the curse of being everywhere.

And people think, who do you think you are that you're in my feet all the time?

And it's like, it's not their fault or their choice necessarily.

But I think that James Corden couldn't escape that.

And so I disagree, Holly, that this is entirely a choice.

I reckon that this was a discussion between him and the late, late show.

He had to leave in the same way Ellen had to leave.

He has made some.

But who watches the late, late show?

I know, but it still has some currency.

And he's said that there's loads of things he'd love to do.

And I thought this was telling, but they're very reliant on people wanting me to do them.

And so he's going to take a breath and take a minute.

But he's said that he's absolutely terrified.

The ground is unstable and it brings into question cancellation because we all say it doesn't exist.

But maybe it does to different degrees.

He has not been cancelled.

I don't say it doesn't exist.

No, no, you don't say it doesn't exist.

But I don't think he's been cancelled.

I think his image has been dented.

His nice guy image has been dented, but I think he'll probably be fine.

I think he's been cancelled from the States and I think he's retreating to the UK.

I've seen the biggest problems for people whose public profile,

whether they're an influencer or a celebrity, their public profile is quite one note.

And I think what that can be in some ways, our culture demands it of you.

But what it can become is a prison because it means that you're trapped there.

You can't transgress.

Exactly, because nobody can be nice all the time.

So because Ellen was like, I'm everyone's best friend and not that they made wrong decisions.

But I know that with influencers, the friends I have who are influencers,

who put across my life is perfect.

I'm always looking great.

They are so much more stressed because no one's real life is that.

Whereas people say to me, oh, you're so brave.

You go on social media and you don't wear makeup and you're like, I'm not brave.

I'm just lazy because I want a bigger gap.

I don't want to trap myself or limit myself to only being one thing

because ultimately that's the recipe for disaster.

It also happens with social justice activists because they call out this and call out that

and they're behind a cause and you see them get canceled quicker than anyone

because the second you see hypocrisy, that's kind of the thing our culture hates more than anything.

I don't think I need to send flowers or donate to a GoFundMe for James Corden just yet.

I just think we should acknowledge that we think that hyper successful people like Ellen

or James Corden or whoever can possibly be as lovely, lovely, lovely all the time

as their public persona suggests.

You can't be a boss.

You can't make tough decisions.

You can't make lots of money.

You can't do all this without having ego, without having drive, without having ambition

and all those things sometimes are going to piss other people off.

The 100% nice guy is a myth.

It's the greatest privilege that from a conversation so just honest between two friends

that you would create such a thing that blows my mind.

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My best and worst of the week are both around the same topic.

So last week I had to play corporate wife for about four days,

which is not a role I'm very familiar with.

My husband had a reunion for his business course at Harvard about 15 years ago.

All the people, they have a reunion every two years

and this year Australia was hosting it.

It's the first one they've done since the pandemic.

Anyway, there was like 100 people from all countries all over the world

and a lot of them with their partners as well

and some with their children all came to Sydney.

So Sydney was hosting all of these people.

So I had to be corporate wife.

And so it was four days, part of it was learnings and stuff.

They continued to do study altogether.

A lot of it was socializing.

So it was dinners, lunches, beautiful restaurants around Sydney.

There was a boat thing.

There was, you know, and everyone was on holidays essentially

except the Australian crew were kind of still working.

And I had such a lovely time, but my worst is the introvert hangover.

I usually can do one of those things in a month, you know,

different going out with girlfriends or something.

But if I'm in a situation where I'm around people,

they don't know having to make small talk, you know,

getting to know people, it's lovely, fancy dinners, restaurants,

speeches, all that kind of stuff.

Not that I had to make any, but doing all of that,

I can't even tell you my introvert hangover, which is funny

because people think that I'm an extrovert as I used to think as well.

But that stuff drains my social battery.

Was it a wardrobe challenge?

No, that was the fun part for me, you know,

wearing whatever I wanted to wear

and getting to wheel out some nice outfits.

But the best part, apart from meeting all these great people,

who my husband had become,

these are some of his closest friends that I'd never met.

So it was lovely to actually meet some people.

But the best part was dancing

because every night there was an event

and every night there was a dance.

Well, these are people who like to dance.

There was an Indian contingent.

There was an American contingent from Salt Lake City

who liked to break dance.

There were these two guys who were Mormons,

who were brothers.

They're also break dancers.

You sent me a video of a conga line

and I thought, oh, Mia's in hell.

No, but they all love a conga line.

No, no, that was my favourite part, the dancing.

Every night there were conga lines.

And every night, you know,

the Indians were teaching us how to do Indian dancing.

And it was so much fun.

And because I just, I love dancing.

I love being on a dance floor.

I know you might not know this, Jesse,

because I've seen it at the weddings.

All the dancing that I make you do in the live show.

But I bloody love a dance floor.

And once you get to a certain age,

you don't go to nightclubs anymore.

And I never go to like, I don't know, where else are there?

Weddings, you get to dance.

But other than weddings,

I don't get to dance anywhere anymore.

So I danced every night for four nights.

That was the best, best part.

Loved to dance.

Oh, I loved that.

Yeah.

I'm going next.

So my worst,

come on before I spoke about it last week,

I did to you two.

Yes.

I told you I was having an existential crisis.

You didn't on the show.

This was a private before podcast chat.

I am having worked on on my teeth.

Right.

And the reason it's my worst,

other than the fact that obviously going to the dentist

is horrible,

do you want to influence the teeth?

I've had,

I wish it's going for years.

Just any teeth we do.

Just teeth would be fine.

Holly's decided she would like influence the teeth

and is available for sponsorship.

Oh my God, no.

I'm having some work done on my teeth.

And the worst thing about it is obviously it's painful.

And like I went to an appointment last week.

I've got another one this week where I had a million needles.

You know, your face swells up.

It hurts a lot.

I felt really sore afterwards.

But the worst bit and the reason it was an existential crisis

is it's entirely my fault because I am one of those people

who has put off and put off and put off going to the dentist

for years.

Are you serious?

Yeah.

How many years?

You don't want to know.

This is most people.

This is most people.

Years and years.

My kids go to the dentist.

My partner goes to the dentist.

This is me.

I'll get around to that soon.

It's time.

It's money.

It's time.

It's money.

It's time.

It's money.

I'll get to the dentist.

Get to the dentist.

Finally, get to the dentist.

You'll be happy to know that my teeth are fine.

I don't need any fillings,

but my gums are screwed.

Right.

Anyway, I won't bore everyone with the details.

It's awful.

Gums could get screwed.

It's awful.

How do they get screwed?

They get infected.

Like, bad things happen.

And did you go because you were in pain?

I went because I knew that something bad was happening,

but I'd kept not facing it.

Yeah.

And this is the thing, right?

So, the worst is that, obviously, it's painful

sawing it out, and it will be...

And expensive.

It will be painful and very expensive

than sawed it out.

But the reason it was my worst is it sent me

into that one of those pits you get into

when you realise you're mess.

It's all you're doing.

That's why I live, Holly.

That's why I came to you for advice.

Are you sure there's no one you can tell

because I think it's good for me.

I blame me for most things.

I would blame your children and maybe your husband

because you've been really busy with your children

being born and living.

And so, I think that that's probably where the blame lies.

Well, yes.

But it's that thing of like,

I knew that I should get round to this,

do this thing, do this thing,

and put it off, put it off, put it off.

And what you want to happen then is that you go

and they go, it's fine.

Just in time, Holly.

That's not what happened.

So, I'm in a pit of self-loathing about that.

However, it links to my best because...

You're going to hate this.

Because I've been feeling really shitty about myself

last week, I'm like,

get yourself together, Holly.

Stern-pep talk.

Pep talk?

Yep.

In the mirror.

Pep talk.

And I...

Did you do a power pose?

Don't.

You didn't do gratitude.

You didn't.

I have picked up a gratitude trick

that I found on the internet

that I have been employing in recent times.

What is that?

When I feel overwhelmed.

And I reckon, Jesse,

if you're more open to gratitude,

I think I need to do it.

You would like this.

Yep.

So, you know, when you get overwhelmed

because you're like,

I've got to do this stuff

and I've got to do that stuff

and I've got to take the kids here

and I've got to do that

and I've got to travel to that place

and I've got to do that job.

I get to take my kids to the park.

Yes, she knows what I'm doing.

Yeah, I hate it.

Oh, yeah.

I've been trying that too.

So, you change the phrase,

I have to, to, I get to.

When I'm sitting on the train this morning

and I'm like,

don't like being on the train early in the morning.

I'm like, I get to travel to the big city today

and see my friends

and do exciting meaningful work

with the people I like.

Tomorrow, I get to take Matilda to football training

and see my amazing strong teenage daughter.

Don't you feel like you're lying to yourself?

Yeah, you do.

Like, doesn't it hurt?

That's not how you truly feel.

Well, the thing is,

the reason it's my best

is that I've been trying

to make this positive slip

and I felt it working.

I felt it working.

So, for example, today,

when I was doing it on the train,

I was like, I get this time to myself.

You know, because some days,

as I've said before,

some days having moved away is really annoying

and I'm like, why did I do that?

But then if I go,

I get to have this time to myself,

I can get some work done,

I can do this, I can do that.

And then I get to have, you know,

my exciting job and like,

it literally kind of works.

I began to feel like excited

instead of resentful.

I'm not resentful,

but I completely agree with you.

And I've funnily enough

been doing the same thing.

We must have been listening to the same podcast

or read the same article,

probably written not by Jessie,

someone else.

But how do you apply it to the dentist?

I get to have influencer teeth.

One of the things about putting things off,

because I'm terrible for this,

avoiding something that, you know,

is going to be difficult

and all those things,

is that once you've done it,

it feels great.

So even though this whole

work on the teeth thing

is going to be painful, expensive and annoying,

at least I don't now wake up at two in the morning

and go, oh, my teeth.

Oh, my God.

I've got to go to the dentist.

I still haven't made that dentist appointment.

I still haven't.

You know what I mean?

So maybe we'll try and work on.

I get to stop worrying about my teeth.

I get to fuck out thousands.

Save me.

Look, my worst,

I remember when I was

early in my second trimester

and I came onto the show and I said,

this is the best I've ever felt in my life.

And I remember out loud as reaching out

and they were so, so lovely.

And they said, I loved hearing you say that

because I had a really rough time

during my pregnancy and it's nice to remember

that some people have a good time.

Oh, my God.

I hate myself.

This has been so hard.

And I think that I owe it to our loudest.

If I'm going to talk about how good I felt.

I was exercising and eating well

and just lots of great hormones.

Loved it.

Now it is among the worst

I have ever felt in my whole life, right?

Why am I laughing?

Break it down.

Jesse, you mean you get to grow a baby?

Yes, you get to grow a baby.

And I break it down all the different ways.

Bad, bad, bad.

It is like a fog has descended.

I had it in the first trimester

and then it lifted early in the second,

which is why I think I started feeling better.

And then end of second trimester

and into the third.

It is like this fog has descended.

I don't feel sort of present,

really negative self-talk

and negative emotions

and no energy.

And then it's almost like you get so overwhelmed

that you get to a point where

your emotions just numb out.

I'm going to tell you something that I think

because you didn't ask.

I think this is nature's way of making you go inward.

Not just you,

but you've got your energy in your second trimester

because you do have to get some shit done.

But then it's about shutting down

and disengaging from the outside world

and preparing for this thing you've got to do,

which is birth, look after a newborn.

And I don't mean this in an awful way,

but to touch from your old life

and not reinvent,

but move it, transition into a new phase.

Which is really hard

because what I'm doing

is holding myself to the standard

I've always held myself to, failing at it

and I feel myself failing at it

and then the self-talk gets worse and worse and worse.

And I know that this feeling isn't going to end.

It's just going to get worse, right?

And in terms of going into parenting

and like, I think it's terror.

I think it's terror about childbirth

and the first six weeks and then the next 18 years

and all that kind of stuff.

Like just awful, awful.

I mean, the good part of that is that my obstetrician

and midwife have been amazing.

And if anyone else feels like that, then talk to them.

I think it's grieving in a way and transitioning.

Like, you know how you transition in labour

when you're transitioning into the part

where you're about to, like this is the third trimester

and I remember having so many of these feelings

and I also thought I'd had a great pregnancy

until the third trimester.

And it's much more with your first baby

because with subsequent babies, if you have them

there's so much going on.

And it's the unknown.

And also I think, and I don't know if this is true for you

so I don't want to speak for you

but I remember when I was pregnant, particularly with my first

we've told ourselves that we can do everything

and that pregnancy won't slow us down

and that, you know, similar to the conversation we had earlier

that being a woman and having babies

doesn't mean that we can't still be a productive employee,

a great friend, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

But the reality of it is your body is doing something

pretty full-on and so is, as Mia says, you know

your life and your mind.

So give yourself a break.

You also have a busier life than most.

You've been doing a lot of travelling lately,

a lot of getting married.

You've emcee to wedding on the weekend.

You've fly to Melbourne every week.

There's a huge amount on a non-pregnant body.

Yeah.

And I think that's exactly it.

You just go, I should just act like I'm not pregnant

but then you are.

I reckon you can pull up.

If you're lucky enough to have a good pregnancy

you can pull off the act like you're not pregnant

for the first few months.

Remember we did on the last show about the green flags?

You know how one of the green flags that I was good at

was can you rest without feeling guilty?

Yeah, it's very good at that.

Whatever rest looks like for you.

The other one was about self-talk.

Yeah.

And instead of being, why can't I?

It's, you know.

Yeah.

And their two things of struggling the most

with the dress is not.

Changing your, being so horrible to yourself

and not being able to do what non-pregnant Jesse could do.

And you're in so much pain and discomfort

and that's just, there are parts of it that are awful.

My best was I went to a wedding last weekend

which was one of my closest friends.

I love very much.

And she wore a bright orange wedding dress.

Holly, you would love that.

I saw the pictures and I immediately messaged her

and I was just like, oh.

That dress.

Everything.

Loved it.

She organized it in 12 weeks.

She doesn't have time.

She doesn't have time for this three year engagement.

Who would have thought of orange?

Like if you'd have said to me

she's wearing an orange wedding dress

I would have gone, oh.

Like I wouldn't have been able to picture it.

Yes.

But when I saw the photos which you can see

if you look at your Instagram or Claire's Instagram

it was incredible.

And because it was in the country or Crescent head

it was, you know, kind of rurally setting

the green grass and the orange dress and the flowers.

It just looked unlike any other wedding photos I've ever seen.

Was there a surprise that everyone knows

she was wearing an orange dress?

Everyone was trying to guess

and one girl was like, apparently her partner

said to her in the lead up,

I have a theory you're not wearing white.

And she was like, oh, what do you think I'm going to wear?

And he goes, off white.

And she was like, oh, you just wait.

You just wait.

But what I loved most about it is that it was,

and this was kind of a running joke

throughout the whole night.

One of them is very, very liberal.

Works for the liberal party.

And the other one is like member of the Labour Party.

Right.

And they've been together for years

and they love each other so much.

And it was such a great reminder

because obviously their families would vote

differently in all of that.

But they have the most interesting discussions.

They have common values.

They talk and talk and talk.

But in a world where you've got people saying,

unfollow me if you vote, love.

It was just so refreshing.

That's the truth of most relationships.

Families.

It's only online that people demand

that everybody thinks the same way as them.

Yes.

Neither thinks the other is a monster.

It was so much fun.

I saw Miriam Margolies saying that

about Barry Humphries in her tribute.

She said, we disagreed politically

about almost everything.

Our relationships are lovely.

Reminder, you can love someone madly

who you disagree with intensely.

Exactly.

Keeps life bloody interesting, doesn't it?

Mia, you had a recommendation?

I do.

It's a story that I read on Mama Mia.

It was anonymously written even though

the author is known to us.

The title was, for a decade I rose at 5 a.m.

every single day.

Something profound happened when I stopped.

And this woman who's in her 30s told the story

of the fact that she for many, many years

would get up at 5, pack her lunch,

walk or jog to the gym, do weights,

go to work and that she needed that exercise

every single day for her mental health.

And if she didn't have it,

she was just not quite right

and she was so locked onto it.

And then a year or so ago,

she became injured and she got an injury

that caused some nerve damage or inflammation.

She's subsequently not been able to even walk

many days, let alone run.

There's no more gym visits.

She's had surgeries.

And what she discovered with dealing with this chronic

like mind-bending pain over this long period of time

and having what she thought was an absolute

non-negotiable crutch in her life just ripped away from her,

she was talking about having to go inwards

and what she's done and I don't want to spoil it

but what she's done and what she's learned

that has actually changed her whole life

for good as well as for bad,

this thing that she didn't have control over.

I put it on my socials because I thought it was

so profound and so beautiful.

The response was phenomenal.

My DMs absolutely filled up with people who were sharing it,

talking about how much they appreciated it

and it's interesting because the volume of people

who were affected by it surprised me

because it's quite a specific thing what she talked about.

What she explains in the piece is that when she was young

she experienced some serious trauma

and she isn't specific about what it was,

what the incident was,

but she talks about how all of her structure

and all of her routine and all of her coping mechanisms

she could see now were a direct response to handling that

and how she's had to find another way of doing it

and I think that that story,

that speaks to so many women

and it's sad to think about why.

It's difficult to think about why

but it clearly does because same,

the people who've messaged me about this story

and it's remarkable.

I'm putting a link in the show notes.

Please check it out.

Share it with someone who might really be

helped and supported by it.

That is all we have time for on Mamma Mia Out Loud

today and this week.

And if you're looking for something else to listen to

on yesterday's Scriba segment we discussed

Em Radikowski, model actress,

she has responded for the first time

to Celeste Barber's kind of parody of her

and she says I didn't give you consent

basically to make that joke

and we talk about the idea of consent

whether you need to give someone permission

to make jokes about you

when you're a celebrity of that level

and we came to some very interesting conclusions.

I wish I'd been here for that conversation.

I can't wait to listen myself.

I'm so glad you weren't.

It would have been Holly and me's greatest hits

going put to head over Em Radikowski

and her lack of pants.

That's true.

So we plowed new ground.

We did.

The link to that is in our show notes.

Please follow it.

Thank you for listening.

The episode was produced by Emma Gillespie

with audio production by Leah Porges

and assistant production from Susanna Makin.

We'll see you next week.

Bye.

Bye.

Shout out to any Mamma Mia subscribers listening.

If you love the show and you want to support us,

subscribing to Mamma Mia is the very best way to do it.

There's a link in the episode description.

Thank you.

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