Mamamia Out Loud: Hamish Blake & The New Wave Of Dadding

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Mamma Mia Out Loud!

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

the 1st of September 2023.

The reason I stumbled over that, I'm like, the 1st of September.

Since when?

I know.

Spring.

Anyway.

I'm Holly Wainwright.

I'm Claire Stevens.

And I'm Jesse Stevens.

Today, Mia's got the day off and so we've got this most special guest, I'm so excited,

Jesse Stevens.

Welcome, welcome.

I have missed this seat and it's a service to the Out Louders because the Out Louders

will agree that you guys are wrong about so much.

And I've been listening and just going, oh, you know what they show me, it's a nice bit

of me.

So I'm jumping on, look, no Out Louder has said that, interestingly, but I've been in

the group kind of wanting to troll people.

I mean, Holly's take on Amy Winehouse.

It's just awful.

But anyway, that's all we're here to discuss, can't wait to get into it.

Someone had to say it.

Someone did.

I was like, Devil's Advocate, Holly Wainwright.

I am outgunned by Steven's sisters today, this has never happened before, I'm feeling

a little nervous, but it's going to be great.

Anyway, before we get started on the show today, I'm going to have a quick word about

what's undoubtedly the biggest story of the week.

The date for the voice referendum has been announced in case anyone has missed it.

It's October the 14th, friends.

Now today you'll find the Prime Minister talking to our very own Claire Murphy on an excellent

episode of Mama Mia's Daily News Show, The Quickie.

They've already created some great episodes about the voice and obviously they're going

to continue to do that.

And on Mama Mia Out Loud, we are obviously going to cover it too sometimes because, as

all Out Louders know, we're a show about what women are talking about.

And since all of us who are over the age of 18 are going to be voting in this referendum,

it's pretty front of mind.

But we're not a straight news show like The Quickie.

Out Loud is a place where we express opinions, we reflect opinions, and hopefully we also

model respectful disagreement.

So we'll be doing that.

We'll be being honest about our personal viewpoints.

And I have to tell you, despite what we were just saying about Amy Winehouse, we never

fake those in a bid to be representative.

So we might not please all of the people all of the time on that front, which is why we'll

also be bringing in First Nations voices and experts who know a lot more than we do

about it when it's relevant.

So on that, we're planning a voice special where we're going to ask the questions that

Out Louders have about the voice and we want you to send them to us on email.

We're going to be being pretty strict in the Facebook group over the next few weeks because

we don't want to add to any of the misinformation and some of the more toxic discourse that's

going on.

We would love it if you have a question you would like answered about the voice, not by

Mia and Claire and I, but by people who know better.

Email them to us, either written or a voice memo, even better to Out Loud at mommamiya.com.au

and we will do our best to get it answered for you.

On with the show, Jesse Stevens.

On the show today, apparently Holly has a lot of questions about my book.

So luckily I'm here and she's got a big one in particular, so I'm preparing myself.

So Hamish Blake has been voted father of the year.

Is that great or nonsense and what is it that makes a good father?

And we wrap up our best and worst of the week, which includes frustrating debate, travelling

with your workmates and that time I was on Q&A.

But first, I got a call saying we've got a patient with an infection problem.

We've just removed a live worm from this patient's brain.

In case you missed it, a round worm has been found in an Australian woman's brain in a

world-first discovery.

A 64-year-old woman from New South Wales first presented to hospital in January 2021

after suffering three weeks of abdominal pain and diarrhea, followed by a constant dry cough,

fever and night sweats.

At different points in my life, I've had all of those symptoms and I'm not liking that

there could be a really bad.

I think I have them all right now.

By 2022, her symptoms had changed and they included forgetfulness and depression.

That's when at Canberra Hospital, she had an MRI scan of her brain.

What they found was a once-in-a-career finding for the neurosurgeon involved.

It was an eight-centimeter wriggling worm in her brain.

Oh, dear.

Thank you.

So that was one of my questions.

It was alive?

It was alive.

All right, cool.

Next question, just because we're going there.

What did it eat?

I believe it ate brain.

I don't know, but I assume in order to survive.

You know how I have pet worms now because I have a worm farm because, as you know, I'm

green-fingered goddess these days.

There are lots of different types of worms.

Do we know what kind of worm it was?

It was a round worm.

Oh, it was a round worm.

It's not like the kind that you have in your poo sometimes.

It's not a ring worm.

Well, all I know, so they sent the worm.

I thought you're a worm expert and suddenly you don't even know what it ate.

So they sent the worm to the laboratory of a CSIRO scientist who is very experienced

with parasites, and he recognized it as, I'm going to try and pronounce this scientific

word, Ophidicisaurus robertsi, a round worm usually found in pythons.

The Canberra Hospital patient marks the world-first case of this parasite.

So how'd the parasite get in the brain?

Oh, okay.

So this is my favorite part.

It moves near a lake area inhabited by carpet pythons and often collects grasses, like

native grasses to use in her cooking.

So the theory is, and it is just a theory, a hypothesis by the doctors, that a python

may have shed the parasite via its feces into the grass and she's consumed it, either through

her cooking or through her hands and then eating something.

That's how it got in.

You know, when we were traveling this week, which more of that later, someone sent me

a picture from the street where I live, that there was an enormous green python in my neighbor's

front garden.

So now I'm just like, okay, we're not eating any of my vegetables anymore, not until I've

squirted them with loads of bleach.

No, my lesson from this is no foraging.

We don't need to-

And no shaking hands with Holly Wainwright, who may have a worm on her hand, unknowingly.

Yes, exactly.

That crawls into the ear and then you feel a brain wiggle.

The fun thing is, it can't spread from human to human, luckily.

But we should be careful, the scientists say, because this is how so many diseases happen.

Is human interaction with animals and then disease?

Jesse Stevens, it's been a very exciting week for you.

It's one of the reasons, obviously, why you're on today is because you've been doing the

rounds talking about your incredible new book, which is your first novel, something bad is

going to happen.

But you have to clear up, first of all, everybody is like, how is it your first novel?

What about Heart Sick, that best-selling work of genius?

That wasn't a novel, everyone.

That was non-fiction.

Yes.

My mom's an English teacher and she wasn't aware of the distinction.

So novel means fiction and then you've got non-fiction.

Second book, first novel.

And it's brilliant.

I've read it.

We are going to be talking about it, but specifically.

So it's about a young woman called Adela, who's in her late 20s and she is in a psychiatric

unit.

This novel follows basically what has brought Adela to the place that she's in.

And it's a really incredible, beautiful, sometimes brutal exploration of mental illness and the

life of a young woman in modern times.

And it's so good, Jesse.

It's so good.

I mean, obviously.

Thank you.

It's so good.

You've done a brilliant interview already with Mia for No Filter about how much of this

novel is based on your own experiences and we're going to put a link in the show notes

to that.

But one of the things I wanted to talk to you about was about how Adela's experience

of mental illness impacts the people around her, right?

You've written some incredibly moving and confronting sometimes passages about her

sister, Lottie, her interactions with her friends.

And I think that people who know and love anyone who struggles with mental illness,

obviously people who struggle with mental illness are going to feel incredibly seen

by this book.

And I know they're already saying that.

But another group of people are going to feel very seen are those of us who know and love

people who suffer from mental illness and how to kind of handle, support, love people

through that.

Talk to me about what you wanted to say about that in this book.

I'm really glad that you noticed that because it was one of the most difficult things to

write about candidly because the last thing you want to do is make someone who is severely

depressed feel more guilty than they already do about the toll it's taking on everyone

else.

But to pretend that it's not taking a toll on everyone else is also untrue.

And I've been on both sides of that and I wanted to speak to both because I was thinking

even are you okay day is coming up in a couple of weeks.

And that day is about asking the people who are not okay if they're okay and then pointing

them to helpful resources.

The fact that our world ends up becoming separated into the okay and the not okay means that

that's an enormous amount of responsibility for the people in families who are well and

who might have people around them who have depression or anxiety or bipolar or addiction

issues and they get into a dynamic where they're always the ones looking after the other person.

I don't think it's doing us a service either to pretend that something like depression is

like every other chronic illness because it's also not.

People say, oh, you know, it's like cancer or it's like, you don't choose it.

So in that way it is, but there are behavioral elements that really aren't like that.

And so I've been in the situation of being surrounded by people with depression.

I feel like I have license to say this because I've also been the person with it where you

think, okay, I can see the wheels are falling off.

I can see that you're not sleeping.

You're not eating properly.

You're making a series of decisions that are not going to be a good thing for your mental

health.

I can see where this is all going.

How do I intervene?

Sympathy?

Does that make me an enabler or do I do the tough love thing?

And also if you do do the tough love thing and it doesn't work or you do express as in

one amazing scene in this Adela's sister Lottie does when Adela goes to Lottie's engagement

party and is basically a massive downer, she's late, she doesn't talk to anyone.

There's a scene where Lottie kind of unloads about that.

The thing is, is that also pushes the person who's suffering away, right?

If you're honest about how that's impacting other people, then that person just becomes

more isolated because they're like, not only is my life awful, but I'm making everyone

else's life awful.

Yeah.

I mean, this is one of the things about writing fiction is, did you want to offer solutions

or is it more like putting it out there?

That's interesting what you say about writing fiction.

It's the only format where you can truly look at both sides and explore the nuance of it

as sensitively as you possibly can because we know that people who self harm will often

say they feel like a burden.

So how do we ever voice the experience of the carers because a lot of people are listening

to this are officially or not carers of people in their life with mental illness.

And the thing is that if you live alongside someone with depression, there might be acute

episodes, but it also could be decades and decades and decades and you're not a qualified

psychologist.

So your frustration is entirely valid, yet you feel like you can't say the things out

loud.

Who do you say them to?

But they're a part of our lives.

You want to say, get it together.

You want to say, get out of bed.

You want to say, I'm doing all of these things to try and protect and nurture my mental health

and you're not.

What I loved about reading your book is the way it showed the reality that relationships

do crumble when you're not well.

When you have depression or anxiety, you isolate yourself.

And I don't mean that in that you do it in an active intentional way.

I mean that the behaviors that are symptoms of depression are things that lead to isolation.

And I love that you've got a scene where Adela behaves badly and she really upsets a friend

and the friend cuts her off because she's done something mean and selfish and the friend

is clearly trying to protect her own well-being and deciding that she only wants people around

her who are going to treat her well.

I wondered with the Adela and Lottie dialogue, I every now and then thought these are conversations

we've had.

Or wanted to have.

Or wanted to have.

I'm like, Jesse is just putting words in Lottie's mouth that she's wanted to say to me, which

are things like, I've tried so hard to not talk to myself like that and to hear you saying

all of those words out loud, to hear the depressive narrative coming out of your mouth is distressing

to me and is making it harder for me to live in the bubble I've created.

So thanks for that.

You actually talk about this a little bit in that interview with Mia that I found fascinating,

which was that because there is depression, I know that this is a work of fiction.

I'm going to keep saying that.

But you have experience of it, which is why you can explore it so beautifully.

You talk about in that interview with Mia how because there is depression in your family

among you siblings, that sometimes you're like, oh, I can't be around that because that's

going to literally trigger you in the correct use of the word trigger.

That's a big thing to say, like as in, is everybody all right?

How are you all reacting to that being out in the open?

I think that we've all been the ones that are floating and we've all been the ones that

are drowning and both experiences are valid.

We have enough self-awareness to know and this is a conversation you can probably have

when you're in a good space.

It's not one I would feel like having when I was really down.

But there's something very antisocial about my state of depression.

It's incredibly narcissistic and self-involved.

I'm not saying that everyone's is, but there are features of the illness that make you

unable to see the world outside yourself and you know that and that's why that's even

more depressing and unable to take on really obvious advice from people.

I want to know from you two just on this before we move on.

I'm telling everyone about this book.

I'm like, it is going to change lives like for people who are suffering, but also people

who are caring for people who are.

What is helpful?

What is helpful for your partners or the people in your family or in your sibling dynamic

when you can see that you, in your words, somebody is sinking?

What is helpful?

I think knowing, and this is a conversation I've had with a lot of people, that some of

the things you're looking at going, they won't get out of bed, they won't do this, they won't

do that if they just blah, are features of the illness.

Just framing it like that I think is a really important place to start because then that

affords you a bit of empathy.

I also think that what this book is about, the people around you, no matter how hard

they try, probably can't pull you out of this.

It is something that you have to do and I have a thing in the book about it going, alright,

so I'm the illness, but I'm also the cure because it's all in my head, right?

That's also not true because you don't need to do it yourself.

There's help available, which you know, there's lots of things in the book about how hard

that is to get, but you can leave that to the professionals.

If you're a spouse or a mother or a sibling, don't think you need to fix this, you're

not going to fix it and that doesn't mean you're a failure, it just means it's actually

impossible that person is ill and needs to get help.

So I think directing them to the right people is certainly a start.

I agree that it's not something that somebody else can necessarily cure for you, but I kind

of disagree.

In the book, there are two characters and I won't spoil it, but two characters towards

the end who play pivotal roles and they do exactly what it is that you're meant to do.

You don't say it in some really didactic way, you just show it in the novel, but they listen

without judgement, encourage the person to talk, let them know they're concerned and

ask what they need, discuss their strengths and give them positive feedback, they spend

time together, they take their feelings seriously and you really see that it is the people who

do that that are absolutely crucial to Adela's recovery and you're not going to see that

recovery overnight and I think that's another thing, that frustration is...

I want to tell everybody that something bad is going to happen is available in all good

bookshops, but what's also good news is that all Mamma Mia subscribers, I don't know if

you know this, Mamma Mia subscribers, but you get 10% off books at Booktopia.

So if you're a subscriber, buy it from Booktopia, also support independent bookstores everybody,

but 10% off at Booktopia, we'll put a link in the show notes for you to go and buy Jesse's

book.

And I think Booktopia, like the very competitive prices, I think at the moment it's like 20

bucks or something and then you go to 10% and love it.

Quick delivery.

Quick delivery.

Mamma Mia out loud.

In newsable surprise nobody, Hamish Blake is Australia's 2023 father of the year.

The team at the fathering project, which is a non-profit, they're behind the award and

they've recognised him as a dedicated advocate for fellow dads.

He said, is very humbling and probably a bit odd for my kids who ironically don't get

to vote.

To me, this isn't about winning anything, it's simply a chance to highlight the amazing

opportunity we have as dads, mentors or father figures to help shape the future of our kids.

I think the point of being, you know, named this very prestigious title is, I mean it

has to be that you just get sort of a moment to happily bring people's attention to the

importance of fathering and being a dad and for my particular take on it, the joy and

love and adventure that I think is critical to being a dad, so it's a good thing.

This project is all about running programs to help dads and families connect better and

they want more people to know how important dads are for their kids' lives.

So what makes any father a good father?

And Claire, what do you make of this award?

Is it a bit random or do you think it's legitimate?

I saw this headline yesterday and my first reaction was, it's a bit strange, I didn't

know we still had Mother of the Year, Father of the Year awards in 2023.

I don't know why I thought that, I don't know why we wouldn't have them, but my first reaction

was, oh, it feels a bit funny to turn fatherhood or motherhood into a competition, like how

do you judge that?

But the closer I looked and the more I read about the fathering project and what it was

actually about, the more valuable I thought it was.

I have long thought that we need to emphasise the importance of fatherhood and the rebranding

of fatherhood in the last decade is something that's given me a lot of joy and a lot of

hope, so I went through a phase, maybe some listeners will remember it, I got very obsessed

with Hamish Blake.

You do love a bit of Hamish Blake, don't you?

The whole Foster Blake family and their beautiful kids, but I think it's worth interrogating

why.

What was it about them and Hamish that you wanted to look at more closely?

What do you think it is?

I loved that he put forward the joy that he got out of parenting, so even, and I know

you've talked about it on the podcast before, but the fact that Hamish makes his elaborate

cakes for Sonny and Rudy for every birthday and Zoe Foster Blake and Hamish Blake have

talked about how they take their kids on solo trips, like Hamish will go on a trip with

Sonny, Zoe will go on a trip with Rudy because that one-on-one time is really important when

you've got more than one kid.

As much as, you know, you might think, oh, you're making a cake, think of the things

that mothers do 365 days of the year that they do not get credit for and they don't

get a million comments saying how great they are.

There is something to be said about the fact that for a lot of men, fatherhood has not

been something that they've aspired to or something that they've looked at and looked

forward to and known that it can be really, really fun.

Even having brothers who work in childcare, having a lot of, you know, really engaged

dads in my family, I just think it's incredibly important that those stories are at the

forefront.

Jonathan Thurston is another one who's saying him with his daughter.

Oh, my God.

Like, I just absolutely love seeing it.

It gives me a lot of hope for how gender equality can change because a huge part of the

progression of gender equality is a bigger role for dads in the family.

Holly, do you reckon that fatherhood's changing?

I think it's really depressing that you didn't think that dads thought it was fun

before, you know what I mean?

Like, I think that that's really depressing in a way to hear that, that you're like, oh,

it's so nice to see a dad looking like he's enjoying being a dad.

I'm like, oh.

Do you think the generation above us, like your dad's generation, they didn't openly

talk about that?

I'm either exceptional or lucky or something in that I had a dad who was really involved.

Both my parents worked outside the home.

My dad, I'm sure it wasn't 50-50, of course it wasn't 50-50, but he always was involved

with us, always was involved in cooking, shopping, you know, and I'm obviously a lot

older than you two and my arrangement with my partner as out loud as we'll know is he

does more than I do.

So to me, it's not that groundbreaking, but I know that it is in society because it's

still commented on.

And so I also am a big fan of Hamish Blake's outward joy about fatherhood and his

podcast and all those things.

But I have to represent a view and we did say earlier in the show and it's true that

we don't devil's advocate, but I do listen to other people's opinions, of course.

And I know there are women in my life who hate this so much, this what they will see

as performative dadding, getting all this credit because it is absolutely true that

the bar is very low for dads, right?

For example, a working mother is seen as being an enormous punish if she has to

leave work to pick up her kids, right?

I've got to leave to pick up my kids.

I roll bloody hell.

Why do we employ women?

A dad, I've got to leave to pick up my kids.

What an amazing guy, right?

Any working mother of my generation will tell you that that is infuriating reality,

right?

That there is a different bar for men.

I know in my own life that because Brent was the one very often who would be taking

the kids to drop them at preschool or picking them up or doing whatever or

volunteering at school, I get told constantly how lucky I am, right?

And what an amazing guy he is.

He's just doing parenting.

That's what he's doing, right?

Parenting, if you're in a situation where there are two of you and you're in a

heterosexual relationship, that is seen as so weird that it has to be commented

on all the time and it is infuriating, right?

And so there are women in my life who are like, oh, Hamish Blake stays up till

two o'clock in the morning and bakes a cake for his kids and everybody thinks

he's a hero when a mom, and I've done this myself, is like baking cupcakes for

the school at two in the morning.

She is a disorganized hot mess.

And it's invisible.

Well, there's a lot of invisible work, but even if it is visible, it's like,

well, she should be better organized than that, shouldn't she?

Imagine not having planned already what the cupcakes are.

Like there is just a different set of rules, but I have to end that by saying

so I totally understand that annoyance, but in my personal opinion, I feel very

strongly that domestic equality is the only way that women's lives change.

So active fatherhood, as we call it, I guess, has to be modeled.

It has to be celebrated and it has to be normalized.

And that's what Hamish Blake is doing.

So it's annoying, but I think it's also essential.

As someone who has had only an eight week glimpse into fatherhood, motherhood,

differences between the two, but a very intense glimpse, there are a few things

I've recognized that have taught me a lot about the positioning of fatherhood

culturally.

So the first is that you have a baby is straight on to sort of breastfeeding.

Feeding is the biggest thing.

And it is often a conversation between you and the midwife.

The father's in the room, but it's you and the midwife, right?

The support I got in those early days is very woman to woman.

Then what happens is you go to your community nurse and they say, look,

there's a mother's group and looked at Luca, who was in that appointment with me

and said, fathers don't go.

Basically, fathers aren't welcome.

That's a mixture of a lot of things, because it's obviously like most men

don't take the time off, whatever.

And I have thought a lot about the support.

A lot of my friends have kids.

I'm in constant group chats with women, with kids.

I've worked with you and Mia for a million.

There's so much I know just from the environment I'm in and the communities

that exist for me that make this transition not easier, but I know what

motherhood's meant to look like.

And I look at Luca and because he is the first in his friendship group

to become a father, I've had moments of worrying, of going like, where are you

meant to look?

Where do you sit and go, whether it's offloading or whether it's the joy

or whether it's going, what a moment to do when the baby, whatever it is,

he does not have that community.

And so I listened just this week to a few episodes of how other dad's dad,

which is Hamish Blake's podcast on fatherhood.

And it is outstanding.

I loved it.

And I've got Luca onto it because it's about a new model of fatherhood.

Generations ago, it was they provide the mother actually does the parenting.

Hamish Blake talks about dadding as a verb, which, you know, motherhood

parenting is something that women talk about.

But dadding, I was like, that's really cool.

You're not just a dad.

You actively dad.

And also it's important to point out to the people who are eye rolling

about him getting out of the year because he makes cakes or whatever.

That's actually not why he got it.

He got it because he has created that show.

And because he is creating a community of dad's, as you're saying.

I can't explain how grateful I was during pregnancy when I was terrified.

And when the messaging I got was about how hard it is, how you can lose your

identity, how you're never going to sleep, blah, blah, blah, which there are

elements of truth to that.

When I saw the joy that Hamish Blake and Maddie Jay is the other one and Laura

Byrne showed of raising their children and it's a mess.

It's not like they're saying this is easy and perfect.

But when they highlighted the joy, it meant there was hope and excitement

about that period.

And I think having that blueprint for people is really important.

And I think it's lacking.

You know, I couldn't agree with you more about dad role models, right?

Because, and obviously it's a long time ago now, but when I went back to work,

when Matilda was six months, Brent did join my mother's group like he literally

did. We used to meet every Wednesday morning at a coffee shop.

And one Wednesday morning, instead of me sitting there, it was Brent with Matilda.

And there are many funny stories about that, what happened after that.

But Brent is a particular kind of dude who wasn't intimidated by that,

wasn't embarrassed or scared or and he's very gregarious and he likes women

and all that stuff. That's not going to work for everybody, right?

And I remember so clearly because I knew this was coming up in our parenting.

When I sat with the community nurse and she said what she'd said to you, Jesse,

which is like mother's group meets every Wednesday, blah, I said,

do you know if there's a father's group?

And she laughed and she said, as if there'd be one of those.

And she's like, where would they meet?

Anyway, what at the pub?

Like that was entirely her view.

So I agree.

Like we've got to change this narrative.

I heard Rob Sitch say that the first year of his first child's life,

it's best year of his whole life.

And I don't hear that enough to hear that, I think is great.

And the other point that's probably worth just putting a full stop on it

is that talking about time and spending time with your kids as well.

There's an element of privilege to that.

And I look at Hamish Blake and there are dads all over the country

who would look at him and go, I wish I had the time and the holidays

and I could go and spend time one on one with my kids.

But I work my ass off and I don't have the time or the resources and cost

of living crisis, like it's not going to be particular parents fault

that they can't spend the time with their kids that they want to.

Just on podcasts, Matty J's podcast to doing dads.

Also excellent dad content, normalising humour around parenting

to really engage dads.

I'm into celebrating the dad.

So am I, but we've got to raise the bar for them.

The celebration should come when they're doing a really good job,

not just turning up every now and again at pick up.

If you want to make Mum Mia out loud part of your routine five days a week,

we release segments on Tuesdays and Thursdays just for Mum Mia subscribers.

To get full access, follow the link in the show notes

and a big thank you to all our current subscribers.

It is Friday, which means we're wrapping up the week with our best and our worst.

If Holly's best isn't hanging out with me while we travel to Melbourne and Brisbane,

then we're going to have a fight.

But Jesse, kick us off with your worst.

My worst is sort of loosely related to my best.

I like we know this, but sometimes when it happens, you just want a screen.

This week I was on Q&A, I did the project.

I did Studio 10, I did a bunch of media for my book, and it was great fun.

Tonight, joining our panel editor, Mum Mia, Jesse Stevens.

She's just published her debut novel, Something Bad is Going to Happen.

On Q&A, there was a question about housing,

and I just delivered the most basic line about.

The thing that makes the most sense to me is reading a bit about vacancy tax

and sort of the fact we have potentially one million houses that are empty

and then we have a whole lot of people who can't find housing.

Just the maths isn't mapping for me.

Anyway, then I see the Daily Mail has picked it up.

Someone sent it to me and this is the headline they went with.

Fed up young Aussies deliver a brutal message to boomer landlord

as fears grow, war of generations will soon turn nasty.

And it had a picture of me.

It looked like I'd gone on a rant on Instagram.

It was like you were yelling.

Yeah, it looked like I was yelling.

It was a joke video I did about showing off my engagement ring

and they took that picture and put it on.

And it's on the bloody splash of the Daily Mail.

And I thought I've never used the word boomer in my life.

Like it made me sound really contemptuous.

It's not what you were saying at all.

It's just not what I said.

And I looked at that and I went, I hate what that person's saying.

And then I went, wait, I meant to have said that and I didn't even say that.

And then, of course, the DMs flood in like, if you, you bitch, you blah, blah, blah.

And I was like, well, I agree with your sentiment

because I also disagree with the headline.

It's just I never said that.

I disagree with that silly woman who said that.

This stupid little blonde upstart who's having a go at boomers.

She sounds like an idiot.

And the reason it was my worst is like, like the media does this

and I hate this war of generation shit.

Everyone's so divided.

It's just such a reminder that when you see a headline like that,

literally 10 times out of 10, they didn't say that.

That's not what the point was.

Wasn't the context?

It wasn't the context.

I've had a thing.

I've been talking to Holly about it recently that, you know, her mom teaches,

you know, like comprehension, like listening and reading comprehension.

I think that there needs to be some adult lessons of that

because you get it from stuff you do on TV.

You get it from stuff you write.

You get it from stuff you say on podcasts and people say, I can't believe

you said that.

And you're like, but I didn't.

I had that recently.

I said, I didn't say that.

And they were like, well, I'm not going to go and listen to the podcast.

And I was like, well, you should because I didn't say that.

And then I saw a comment and it goes easy for her to say she's worth 17.9

million dollars. And I was like, what is my 17.9 million dollars?

And then someone said, Google it.

And if you Google Jesse Stevens Net Worth, one of those AI websites

says I'm worth 17.9 million dollars.

Oh, my God.

And I just said, you were 17.9 million dollars.

Well, how do you make that?

I don't know. I don't know where they got it.

I was like, I feel like there's been a decimal issue somewhere

and they've hacked the bank and it's actually like one thousand seven hundred.

And I was like, what is going on?

OK, if you're worth that much, you should buy me lunch today.

I owe you guys a coffee.

Yeah. Now, my best book release week is very exciting

and it's two years in the making.

You know, you've tried to do something.

You don't know whether it's paid off yet, but it's out into the world.

I saw this thing on Facebook recently.

It might have been in the out loud as I didn't fully read it, but I got the gist.

It said that there's no difference between the big joys and the small joys.

Maybe the glimmers thing. Yeah, I think it's about.

It might have been about the glimmers.

So the big joys in life obviously feel amazing,

but then there are these small joys and they're actually exactly the same level.

This week, it's just been so wild to kind of, you know, go and do

television and have people buy your book.

And it's a big life moment, but then you go home to this tiny baby

who wants to cuddle or gives you a smile or you give her a bath.

And you go, it's the same joy.

That is a revelation to me to see that life is full of both, as well as,

you know, big disappointments.

Disappointments, they're also all around as well.

Jesse, but a week of big and small joys.

Holly, your worst.

My worst this week is Kanye West.

Sometimes Kanye West, surprisingly, and Mia and I do not agree about this,

is one of my bests because I actually quite like a bit of Kanye West.

And my daughter, who is 13 and a half, loves some Kanye West,

which is awkward sometimes when you're in the car and some of the words

that are being thrown around the car, you're like, I know I shouldn't be bopping.

Should we use the word bopping?

But my daughter wants to be a gold digger.

Exactly.

I know I shouldn't be bopping along with some of this misogyny,

but damn, it's a good tune.

Anyway, this week, there were some paparazzi images of Kanye West in Venice

with his alleged partner, girlfriend, like whatever, Bianca Sensori,

who I believe is Australian.

And they're like committing a lewd act in public on a boat in Venice

surrounded by other boats in Venice.

I haven't seen these pictures, but because part of me when I heard this,

I went, is this an invasion of privacy?

But what you're saying is that it was very public.

So it was not an invasion of privacy, right?

I kind of hate that I'm talking about this because now people are going

to look at the pictures and they're the most depressing pictures

you've seen in a very long time where sitting in a very public place,

he's got his pants down and she is kneeling in front of him.

We can imagine the rest of it, right?

Now, the reason this is my worst of the week, what Kanye West

and his consenting girlfriend decide to do on boats in Venice is none of my business.

But I just had this overwhelming as a motherness come over me

when I saw these images because there is something really disturbing.

And I hate projecting onto other women.

Like there's a lot of commentary that's like she looks like she's his slave.

She looks like she's not. I mean, I can't say that.

I don't know what their dynamic is.

I don't know what's going on there.

Maybe she's living her best life every moment.

But there is a very almost sinister vibe about the dynamic, the presentation.

Like it just feels so grim.

And the thing that made it my worst of the week is then I saw it, I looked at it

and then I thought, oh, my God, I'm going to have to talk to my daughter about this

because she and all her friends, male and female, even though they know

that Kanye West is problematic, politically problematic, you know,

all of those things, they still are fascinated by him.

Yeah.

And there's only so much of that kind of teachable moment

shit you can do with your kids that they're going to listen to.

But what I just want to say to her and I say to her all the time is like

the way that he presents women in his songs and apparently in his life,

judging by what's going on at the moment, is not reality.

And it's not lots of women's reality and it shouldn't be aspirational.

There were also images last week of his 40th birthday party

where he had naked sushi ladies.

I thought they went out of fashion like a long time ago, like women models

lying on tables covered in sushi and his children are picking up.

And you just think Kim Kardashian must be having a conniption somewhere.

She must be having a conniption.

I don't know. Am I like if I become one of those pearl clutching nanos?

No, I went and then looked at the commentary because I saw it and I went.

What are people saying?

And there's kind of a running joke that it's like, yeah, what a boss, what a king.

Yeah, like like he deserves that because he wrote like some of the greatest

music of all time. There's something performative as though he's standing

there as the most powerful man in the world.

Like the sex act doesn't seem to be between them.

It seems to be for the audience, for the audience like it literally is.

I mean, and it also doesn't appear to be not that there should be,

but like there's no joy in that.

Like there's no, you know, there's just everything about it is what you want to

tell your daughter. Like this is not what sex is.

This is not what power dynamics in relationships is.

Anyway, so I'm in a spin about Kanye.

That's my worst of the week.

My best actually Claire Stevens was traveling with my workmates.

We missed you, Jessie Stevens, but we were on the road this week, not for a live

tour, but we were doing what are called up fronts, which is every media company

tends to do them where you go and you talk to advertisers and marketers

and people who you work with all the time about what's going on at Mama Mia,

what our research is telling us about women and what we've got coming up.

And so this week, we've been in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane,

our Sydney actual up front is next week.

And so lots of planes, lots of hotel rooms,

lots of sitting around in green rooms.

And I just love all the people I've worked with.

They're just funny.

We went with like Lee Campbell, Elfie Scott, Mia and Claire,

and I were sitting in this green room yesterday morning.

Poor Claire. She's like pregnant, fricking exhausted.

I was whinging constantly.

Mia loves to have a fight before you go out to perform anything as Claire knows

really well. So she's trying to poke me into having a big discussion with her

about something we're discussing, the voice referendum.

She wants you to have a really strong opinion.

And you're often like, I don't know, I'm learning.

And she's like, come on.

Exactly. And Elfie's so clever.

And Lee is just always sitting there going, can we talk about shopping?

But like, Lee's like, do you really talk about this?

And we're like, we're not that smart, but we just I don't know anything about

shopping. So I can't talk about.

I loved. And then she found the best light for a selfie.

And we all abandoned the conversation and went to the selfie line.

There is no one to be more aspirational than Elfie Scott.

Claire took a photo of her at the airport, just to sleep on the floor.

And I was like, that is the mood we all need to adopt.

The thing I loved, it was 1 30 p.m.

She had had a full night's sleep the night.

And she was like, God, I love her.

I love her so much.

So my best of the week was actually, yes, I've been away from the family,

which is can be hard and back now, which is great.

But traveling with you guys was so much fun.

Claire, what are yours?

My worst is so obviously the date of the voice referendum was announced

earlier in the week.

And it sort of hit me immediately as I started seeing people share

which way they were going to vote.

And then I started seeing the common tree beneath people's posts.

I've realised the next six weeks are going to involve

the frustrating experience of reading a lot of misinformation.

And I find it really disheartening and so much fear has been created.

And some really prominent voices have contributed to confusion in areas

that should be really straightforward.

It's not the difference of opinion that bothers me so much as the misinformation,

the doubling down on misinformation and the fact that I feel like it's had

so long to misdastasise and things have just been taken for granted

that are simply not true.

So I sort of had a really down moment of realising the next six weeks

are going to be really difficult.

And I cannot imagine how difficult they are going to be for Indigenous Australians.

I felt an overwhelming sense of sadness and a bit despondent.

But my best is the people who are able to respond with patience and respect

with facts.

They are my absolute glimmers at the moment.

So there's an excellent podcast on the ABC called The Voice Referendum Explained

and it's hosted by Carly Williams, a Kwondemuka woman and journalist,

and Fran Kelly, who's a radio presenter journalist, political correspondent.

There are two episodes out so far.

Basically, what are we voting for and where did The Voice come from?

And they are just so calm, considered rational and engaging with every viewpoint

and really breaking it down, breaking down the no side,

that there are kind of two components to the no side.

And the fact that those two no sides sort of aren't in agreement.

Like I've just learnt so much from listening to that

and it reminds me that the only way to have respectful disagreement

is to do it with patience and respect.

Narelda Jacobs also did on her Instagram,

there's a video where she asked a bunch of questions,

really the questions that you have where she's asked an expert

and that's also been really helpful,

I think the patience that she has to be able to sit there.

Must be so exhausting.

Because I think you'd be well within your rights and on this podcast

there are snippets from Indigenous Australians

who you can just hear that they are exasperated

and they would be well within their rights to be like,

for God's sake, read the 440 words and leave me alone.

But the people who have the patience and are engaging with all sides

and acknowledging that everybody in this country

has a right to know what they're voting on,

I am in awe of those people and that's been my best.

Jessie, have you got a recommendation for us before we go?

I do. A book that I read while in labour.

Oh, I hate you.

I can't believe you're reading a book in labour.

Like that's just such a freaking...

Like, what do you want?

Like, come on.

Everyone should be reading a book in labour, like shut up.

I didn't say that though.

Yeah, well, you're in front of me.

And when your labour goes for three days, you have some time.

Oh, shut up.

And I was trying to distract myself with a good book.

So it must have been a good book because if it wasn't, I'd have put it down.

It's called The Rachel Incident by Caroline O'Donohue.

Has anyone read this yet?

No, but I would like to.

I haven't. It's literally the next one on my list.

So she did Sentimental in the City with Dolly Alderton.

Isn't she a YA writer?

Yes, YA.

She's a New York Times bestselling YA writer.

And she's a podcaster who is laugh out loud, very, very, very funny.

And she does Sentimental Garbage, love her, love her tone.

I hadn't read anything by her before.

Her tone throughout this is so funny and warm.

If you love that podcast, you will love this book.

Sort of a coming of age book about friendship and youth and ambition.

And this isn't young adult.

No, so this is her first adult one.

And it's about a young girl named Rachel and a friendship she has and a crush she has.

And trust me, you will love it.

It's not light necessarily, but it's not going to make you feel like shit.

It's not going to make you feel anxious.

It's just wonderful.

Which is what her podcast is.

You just smile while you're listening to it.

And she's a beautiful writer.

The Rachel Incident by Caroline O'Donohue.

If you're looking for something else to listen to on yesterday's subscribe episode,

Holly, Elfie and I unpack the meanest things anyone has ever said about us.

I had to argue for this to be a topic.

We talked about how we handle it personally and what we can all do in our daily lives

when we face the commentary about us on social media.

And that's something everybody has to contend with

because most of us have social media profiles and most of us find ourselves being judged.

Every time I post a picture of my baby, someone says that I'm doing something that will kill her.

Yeah, for sure.

Yeah, it's great.

Darling, a link to that episode will be in the show notes.

Thank you for listening to Australia's number one news and pop culture show.

The episode was produced by Emily Casillas.

The assistant producer is Tali Blackman.

And we've had audio production from Leah Portis.

Thank you, Jesse Stevens.

Thank you for having me.

I will be so good.

Be back very soon.

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.

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.