Mamamia Out Loud: Mia Got Cancelled On TikTok

You're listening to a Mamma Mia podcast.

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

on.

Just after we got out of the studio from recording Mamma Mia out loud today, we got the very

sad news that jocks on Frillo, who of course many of you would know is one of the hosts

of MasterChef, and somebody that both Mia and myself have interviewed at different times

and who we both just thought was wonderful, has passed away.

We just wanted to kind of acknowledge that, I think, for anyone who's listening to this

this afternoon.

I just heard that terrible news and this feeling quite sad about it.

Yeah.

If you wanted to hear jocks, words and stories about his life, we've republished the interview

that I did with him on No Filter about a year and a half ago, and I didn't want to interview

him particularly much whole.

You were the one that convinced me because you're a MasterChef fan and a jock fan.

I was a very big jock fan and I hassled you to interview him, and I want to assure everybody

that when jock came into the Mamma Mia offices that day, he didn't disappoint.

He was absolutely lovely.

Delightful.

So honest and open and vulnerable.

I think I interviewed him for this glorious mess, and he was really...

That parenting.

That parenting, he's got older kids and little kids, obviously so sad to think about now,

but he was just the loveliest man, and I know that his interview with you, he really went

there.

It was very moving.

He'd written a memoir, which I'd obviously read before I interviewed him, but there was

something about him he was just so disarming, like he was Scottish and he was a bit naughty.

He wasn't flirty, he was just mad about his wife, like he would just not stop talking

about Lauren.

That's true.

We hit it off, and we ended up texting a bit afterwards, and he came over for dinner with

my husband and I, and they both shared a great love of Indigenous art, and he'd had this

restaurant around it where he was working with all these Indigenous ingredients.

And Lauren and his daughter Ava actually came over for dinner as well, and we got take away,

and then he cooked in my kitchen, he cooked as a...

Like everyone, I'm just so much in shock.

Mr. Chef was only meant to come back tonight, I believe.

They've...

Channel 10 have announced that they will be delaying the return or the premiere of the

new season for a week.

His family, Lauren and the kids have asked for privacy, and we're just sending all our

love.

We are, and recognising a remarkable person.

Hello, and welcome to Mama Mia Out Loud.

It's what women are talking about on Monday, the 1st of May.

I'm Holly Wayne, right?

I'm Mia Friedman, and I'm Jesse Stevens, and on the show today.

The Prime Minister went to a wedding on the weekend, and everyone has an opinion about

it.

I was invited to the wedding, I said I would go, and I'd keep my commitments, including

the Carl Sanders.

Also, Mia has got a little bit of criticism for suggesting there's a big difference between

raising sons and daughters, so who's there?

And influences and fertility, the complex question of can you pay for positive egg promotion?

But first, I went and visited a friend on the weekend, and before I got there in the morning,

like, of the day I was meant to go, I texted to say just checking that we're still on,

is that all cool?

And they were like, yes, and then I texted a little bit later, I'm just running late,

is it still okay?

And they were like, yes.

And I then saw a reel on Insta about the way different generations arrive at people's

houses, and it made me realise that I am actually a completely basic Generex bitch.

Have a listen to this.

I like the way different generations arrive at people's houses.

You've basically got boomers who will turn up completely unannounced, any time from about

seven o'clock in the morning, and they will knock on your door just slightly louder than

the police using a battering ram carrying out a house raid.

And then you've got Gen X, they would have made the plans well in advance, and they would

have also checked in a couple of days before just to make sure the plans are definitely

still happening.

Millennials will have hoped that the plans would have been cancelled.

They will arrive late, but they will text you to say they're on their way, just they're

about to get into the shower.

Gen Z will never actually knock, but the chances are they won't have to, they would have been

documented the entire journey.

What I love about that also is that he said, we edited it a bit, but he also said Gen X

are the forgotten generations, so they think that you've probably forgotten that they even

exist.

Hey, it's me.

I'm at your door.

This is so true.

My worst nightmare would be showing up to someone's house, knocking on the door, which

I never do, mostly because my friends live in apartments and I don't quite know how to

ring the doorbell.

And I don't know their address, so I always have to check a few times before I leave.

But my worst nightmare would be getting there and them having forgotten and me being in

position on not only their time, but their space and just coming into their house.

Like an unannounced house guest is so horrific and upsetting and can really, really throw

you.

But as a millennial, you love a cancel plan, right?

Love a cancel plan.

And that's why you've got to check, because you just want to check that no one wants

to cancel.

Just before you leave, you've got to go, guys, about to leave, can I get anything?

Blah, blah, blah.

But it's also a final out.

It's a way to go, you know what?

Let's not.

And then everyone's relieved.

Oh, it must be different in the country.

No just unannounced knocking, is there?

Well, I think that some people love a pop-in.

For me, pop-ins are dead.

Like I can't bear a pop-in and it never happens because I don't encourage them.

But I think some people do still pop in.

I know people who moved, like who like living close to each other so they can just pop in.

If I ever ran for office, my slogan would be stop the pop.

No one wants you to pop in.

Over the weekend, radio host and Australian television personality, Kyle Sandalands, married

Tegan Kiniston in Sydney.

In attendance were a number of local celebrities from Guy and Jules Sebastian, Kyle Stefanovic,

Bo Ryan, Samantha Jade and of course, Jacquio.

As his best man, Sandalands had Simon Main, who is a convicted drug smuggler and former

brothel operator.

Also in his wedding party was John Ibrahim, who police have alleged is a, quote, major

organised crime figure and quote, the lifeblood of the drug industry of King's Cross.

But Ibrahim has denied any of this and has never been convicted of any related crimes.

So far, situation normal for Kyle.

But the debate that's been raging over the weekend is about the attendance of one individual

in particular, Australia's current Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese.

The new New South Wales Premier was also there, Chris Minns.

Albanese said he was asked about it and he said, the thing that occurs at a wedding,

it's a public expression in front of people, invited guests of love between two people.

That's a good thing.

My favourite quote by Albanese was, I enjoy weddings and I will be going to the wedding.

That had nothing else to do on the Saturday afternoon.

Who says no to a wedding?

He said he wasn't in charge of the invite list and he commended Sandalands as an Australian

success story.

I was invited by Carl Sandalands to his wedding.

I accepted that invitation.

A bloke who at one stage was homeless living on the streets of Sydney and has grown into

someone who is a significant public figure is a part of what is an Australian success

story.

Sydney journalist Stephanie Wood wrote, seriously, Albo, Carl Sandalands' wedding, poor advice,

poor optics, poor choice, which echoed the opinion in a lot of circles, particularly

in the media, and a lot of comment sections saying, what the hell is our Prime Minister

doing at Carl Sandalands' wedding?

Others said, it's a wedding on a weekend, they're mates, Albo is on his show all the

time, they know each other from there and whatever he does on his weekend is his business.

I have been dying to talk to you both about this all weekend because I have a very, very

strong opinion.

Holly, what do you reckon about Albanese being at Kyle's wedding on the weekend?

I am of the opinion that Albo can go where he likes on his Saturday afternoon, but I

think it's deeply disingenuous, all this, like, we're just good mates, like, I love

a wedding, he's my mate.

Carl Sandalands is the new Alan Jones.

Prime Ministers and important people have to suck up to him, they have to, because Kyle

and Jackie O, especially in Sydney, but nationwide to an extent, have an enormous audience and

they are incredibly influential.

And if they weren't, none of the politicians would go on there because it's embarrassing

for them when they do.

Usually, Kyle will take the piss, he'll ask them inappropriate questions about their

sex lives, but every New South Wales Premier goes on there, every Prime Minister goes on

there, anyone who wants to win a reality show goes on there, they know that he is influential.

So it's just a power exchange, right?

It's interesting, particularly this version of Kyle, he famously is a Liberal voter, he

always was, right?

And he's a massive fan of Gladys, old New South Wales Premier.

Was Gladys there?

No, Gladys wasn't there, but he said the reason he liked Chris Minns, and this speaks to exactly

why Kyle is so influential and why these politicians know that he is so influential, is he had

Chris Minns on once and he asked Chris Minns what he thought of Gladys and Chris said nice

things about Gladys.

I kind of know, I mean, she's a very nice person, I'd love to say, oh no, she's horrible

behind the scenes, but she's not, she's a lovely person and you know, that makes it

a lot harder.

Kyle says, I'd never heard a politician before just be honest and nice about their opponent

and he's a stand-up bloke and therefore he's my mate, he can come to my wedding.

And people like that, they respond to it, but I think that we are kidding ourselves if we

think there wasn't a certain amount of pressure for Albo to have to go to that wedding on the

weekend.

And I know there's a contingent of people, women in particular actually, who hate Sander

Lans, paint him as a misogynist and I have a certain amount of respect for that position

because he definitely has said a lot of awful shitty things about women and I stopped listening

to his show for that reason.

But I think that if we don't expect that politicians who live and die by their popularity

are going to suck up to the most successful and influential radio boss in the land, we

don't understand how power works.

It's a mutual flex, isn't it?

Because it's also a flex for him, having the Prime Minister and the Premier at his wedding,

which cost, I was reading around a million dollars and that's just of Kyle's money.

A lot of people donated the services like the entertainment and Guy Sebastian and they

refused to accept payment.

They said no gifts, but if you insist, we do have a gift registry at David Choice, which

made me laugh.

And it tells you something about Kyle's fortunes, right?

Because Kyle's last wedding, I was working at OK Magazine and we did that wedding.

He sold that wedding to us and we covered it and it was a massive job and it was a huge deal.

Kyle doesn't need to do that anymore.

He gave this wedding away for free on social.

The whole of the Kyle and Jackie O socials all weekend was basically a live stream, didn't

overtly sell anything, which tells you a lot about Kyle's fortunes.

Well, I would I have no proof of this, but I would suspect that his employer would have

kicked in some money for that exact reason.

So I think he probably sold it internally to his own bosses.

That's what I would have done if I was Kyle, because that is worth something for the brand.

But it was the most phenomenal marketing exercise for his employer and for his brand

and for him and his show.

I understand as well people who say he shouldn't have gone.

I think there would have been a lot of pressure on Albo to go and to not go.

I think it's interesting.

I would have loved to be flying the world with those behind the scenes conversations.

Also, I think Albo said or Chris Min said, you're a guest at a wedding.

You don't get to vet the other guests.

And I think that's true.

And also it was very controlled who he was photographed with, although he's reported

to had a conversation with Johnny Bram inside.

There were no photos taken of that because optics are everything, right?

I will always come back to this idea of you don't have to agree with everything.

Someone has always said to have them in your life and even to be their friend.

I know that he's more high profile than most.

But Jesse, every wedding you've ever been to, do you agree with everything

that the bride and groom has ever said?

No, I went to your wedding and I think you're full of shit sometimes.

Exactly.

And I was watching this unfold over the weekend going, good on Anthony Albanese.

I don't subscribe to the idea that people are angels and demons and that we can dismiss

Kyle as a simply evil person.

He has said things that I find offensive as a woman to the disabled community,

to the LGBT community, completely agree.

I also think he's been sitting behind a microphone for 30 years.

That's a lot of time to make a lot of mistakes.

The public persona of someone and who they are when the microphone is switched off

can be two different things.

And so in that way, I support anyone who wants to be mates with Kyle.

I'm not sure if he is the new Alan Jones and I was trying to think why.

And I found Alan Jones a little bit more sinister.

And perhaps it was because he had such overt political affiliations,

whereas Kyle seems to be very easy.

Like he kind of seems like the average Aussie, which I know is a ploy,

but he sits there and he speaks to Albo and he speaks to Dominic Perrethe or Morrison

and seems to sort of take them at face value.

Well, Kyle's not trying to get policies changed.

He's not trying to influence what's going on behind the scenes of government.

He's more just enjoys the flex of being able to ask Gladys Berejiklian,

are you a lezzo, which I think he did at one point and that he's got that direct

access to these people in power and that they'll come on his show.

Whereas Alan Jones did use it in a much more duplicitous way.

And interestingly, all the people he was in bed with were liberal politicians,

never labour politicians.

I get that because I agree with you.

I think Kyle does genuinely just love the power play of like,

I could get the PM at my wedding, but I think there's a naivety to think there

isn't something that we should keep our eye on about how cozy politicians

and prime ministers and leaders are with members of the media to a point, right?

That I think you should because there's a reason for that exchange,

which is it's in return for favourable coverage.

Basically, it is at the end of the day.

And it's the same reasons why prime ministers have lunch with Rupert Murdoch.

I agree, we can paint it all as a harmless knock about Saturday afternoon,

and it is, but there's more to it than that.

This will play so well for Anthony Albanese.

In media circles, they go, but Kyle is so offensive, which, you know,

for reasons previously stated, he is, but he is loved and listened to

by the average Australian who, you know, might listen to a five minute

interview and make their mind up about who they vote for.

I reckon this was probably a strategic decision as well,

because I think it will play very well for him in the long term.

Being the mother of a son is like someone breaking up with you really slowly.

All of our boys, our sons, if we're lucky, will grow up and away from us

because they need to.

So my friend, Mia Freeman, went viral a while ago.

She's been viral many times, but a particular story we're talking about

was a story that Mia wrote about watching her son grow up.

And the headline on Mama Mia of this story, which is like a couple of years ago,

you wrote this, I think years ago, was called,

Your son growing up will feel like the slowest breakup you've ever known.

Now, when you write a story like that on Mama Mia or any other media site

and you put it out into the world, some things do OK.

Like a few people read them, you might get a few messages saying, you know,

oh, I agree. That was great. Thank you.

And you might get a few people saying, don't agree.

This was one of those stories that took on a life of its own

and traveled and traveled and traveled because a lot of women felt the same way.

And relatively recently, it kind of took on a life for a second time

because Amanda Keller, who is sometimes host on this very show

when one of us is away, talked about it on her radio show

and there was a little video of it and that went viral, too.

This is what Amanda had to say about Mia's story.

I read a piece that Mia Friedman wrote and she just articulated so brilliantly

what it's like to be a mum of a boy who grows up to be a man.

And I'll just read you some of it if I can, if I can get through it.

She had recently seen a movie called Otherhood,

and that's where those movies are from.

And she said the movie's supposed to be about boys

growing up and moving out of home and it's supposed to be a comedy.

But she said it examines what it means to be a mother of a son

who is no longer a boy, no longer your boy, but a man.

Oh, I'm going to cry in my own words coming out of Amanda's mouth.

Hey, I'm here to burst your bubble because, hey,

old ladies with your grown up sons, there's another group of people

who have thoughts about men's relationships with their mothers.

And that's women, young women in particular,

who may be dating or having relationships with such men, perhaps.

And one of those women, Abby Chatfield,

who's something of a feminist icon.

She's been in here to Mama Mia and spoken to the whole team.

Mia's had her own no filter.

She's, you know, remarkably influential.

She came across that video of Amanda talking about Mia's peace

and she had some issues with it.

She thought it was gross.

She thought it was a little bit problematic.

This is what Abby said about Mia's story.

Can I parent please explain to me

how having a son grow up is different to a daughter growing up?

Like, I love Amanda Keller.

I love Mia Friedman.

No hate to either of these women.

But this article confuses the fuck out of me.

Like, it's almost comical how Freudian this is.

This is why so many men, I think, are babied

and appeased and catered to

and then have these overbearing mothers in law.

Not saying that Amanda or Mia are either of those things.

But this normalization of the way that mothers treat sons is so gross.

Look, I do know why. I know exactly why.

But I want the boy moms to have a chance

to explain why they think it's normal to say

that your son growing up is the same as a breakup.

Now, the reason I'm bringing this up

is not to make me uncomfortable,

but I actually want to hear Mia answer Abby's question

because it's one that I struggle with, too, actually,

as a feminist, as a mother of a boy and a girl.

What is the difference in watching a daughter and a son grow up?

Mia Friedman.

Well, I gave this a lot of thought

because when I first saw the video,

which actually came out two weeks ago,

so no doubt Abby forgot about it almost straight away.

But there were lots of comments basically saying, yeah, yeah,

I think it's gross, too.

What's wrong with these women and blah, blah, blah.

Old ladies crying about their sons.

And the implication was that there was some kind of weird sexual thing going on

or it was just weird and inappropriate and sad

and patriarchal and all of those things.

And unfair to our daughters, et cetera.

So my instinct straight away was to be defensive.

And I was like, I'm going to do a stitch in her video

and then I'm going to make a response.

But I didn't know how to do that.

So what I did instead was I went and had a shower

and I thought about it and I took some time.

And then I thought, OK, I actually get why it would look weird from the outside.

Like, because you don't have women writing those kinds of essays

or saying those kinds of things about our daughters growing up.

How can I explain it to women who've either never had a child

or perhaps never had a son before?

How it is different because I've got two sons and a daughter.

So I've got some experience in both.

And I came to the conclusion and we'll put a link in the show notes

to the response that I wrote to Abby that the relationship

between a child of a different sex to you is very different to the one

that you have with the same sex child, a woman and her daughter.

And I think a father and his son, whether you realize it or not,

there's subconsciously a whole lot of baggage around comparison and projection

that even if you don't consciously think it, you kind of expect them

to just be the same as you were at all the ages they are

and to have the same personality as you and make the same decisions as you.

And when they don't, it can be a bit weird and confusing.

And then I don't have that same baggage with a child of a different sex

because I've never been a boy.

So I don't know what a six year old or 21 year old boy or man should be feeling

because I've got nothing to compare him to in terms of my own experience.

The other side is an old Irish saying that is a son is a son

until he takes a wife, a daughter is a daughter for the whole of your life

or something like that, which basically means sons love their mothers

until they get married to a woman if they choose to get married to a woman.

But daughters, whether they get married or not,

doesn't matter who they marry, will always stay close to their mothers.

And I actually think that's true.

I hate that saying with all of my heart.

No, it's just different.

It does change.

Like, it's not that I'm not close.

It's not like Luca binned me when he married Jesse.

And it's not like Remi is going to bin me now that he's, you know,

hit adolescence.

And it's not that Coco and I have always stayed super, super close.

It's that's way too simplistic.

But I think at the heart of it, your relationship with your son

is impacted when they reach puberty in a way that your relationship

with your daughter isn't.

I don't love that saying either, although I see a kernel of truth in it.

This is from the time that it was written.

Obviously, it can be very heteronormative and the suggestions here.

That's kind of where the sexual suggestion of something between mothers and

sons and and it exists between fathers and daughters as well gets kind of muddy.

But I think that what you're getting at, Mia,

is something that has been observed and researched about what happens

to men during adolescence.

What's difficult to establish is how much of it is socialized

and how much of it is biological and just part of how boys and girls grow.

Because as boys grow into adolescence, there's a withdrawal,

especially when it comes to physical touch.

Girls who sit at sleepovers at 16, 17, 18, massive generalization here,

but go with me, are physically intimate in a way that isn't necessarily sexual.

So they might play with each other's hair, they might share a bed, cuddle.

And I would say a lot of that is social, that it's a lot more acceptable.

But because of probably decades of homophobia,

that relationship between boys stops somewhere in adolescence

and it also stops towards their mothers.

So you feel this pulling away.

And can we talk about why that is?

Like genetically, that is to guard against incest.

It's biological that at a certain age,

girls become sort of physically repulsed by their fathers

and boys become physically repulsed by their mothers.

And you can feel it like you can feel the time that your son

becomes physically repulsed by you.

But your daughter, you might clash with your daughter,

but she's not physically repulsed by you in that same way.

Would you agree, Jesse?

Yes. And again, I'm not sure how social biological it is.

Because again, this is in a really heterosexual context.

There are lots of girls that will love girls and lots of boys that will love boys

and girls and boys who will love both.

So it's it's confusing.

But the other data point that I think that saying really speaks to

is all you have to do is look at when you grow old,

who looks after the mother and the father, right?

For example, and this is just an anecdote, but in my mom's family,

she's one of seven.

She's the only girl when her mother got sick, the mother moved in with her, right?

And that is indicative of a lot of families.

And this caregiving, I would say that is very, very social.

But it's also real.

I understand why Abby pulled that point, right?

Is because none of us can argue with the data.

It's always very irritating to me when things I think me is wrong about

because I'm behind her in the parenting world, right?

A few years behind her with the same age, my kids are a lot younger.

So it's always very irritating to me when she is inevitably proved to be right.

So my son is not yet in adolescence.

But my entire life, I've pushed back about this idea that women

have to take on the caring responsibilities for everybody always.

And I think one of the problems with celebrating this kind of idea,

like my friend who has two daughters, she has a cushion on her bed

and I'll take the piss out of her for it, but that says daughters are forever.

And I'm like, what, boys are temporary?

Like the idea that there are so many assumptions in that

that don't actually speak to my experience or the experience of my family

or the experience of my partner's family, that a boy is your son until he takes

the wife, it assumes, obviously, as you've already pointed out,

Jesse, a very heteronormative example, but also that he's going to marry young

and then he's going to stay married.

Like there's a whole list of assumptions that are made there

that are not necessarily true at all.

I know lots of women who do not look after their elderly parents.

I know that in Brent's family, when his mom was older,

she moved in with her son, not her daughter.

And her daughter was very much like, don't put this on me.

I think that there's one of those things of saying that this is a fact

when actually there's so much socialization that goes on in all this.

I think it's a common experience.

I don't necessarily know if it's a fact.

It's definitely a common experience, but I guess the thing is,

it's one of those things that you say, well, maybe you shouldn't have an opinion

if you're not a parent, but we all have relationships with each other, right?

And a lot of people would react and respond

to the idea of the mother-in-law who won't let go of their son.

And that's what Abby was talking about and the little prince syndrome.

I don't know anyone like that.

Of the idea that their son is somehow a special guy who needs looking after

and what kind of woman is going to know how to look after him

and that we don't feel that way about our daughters.

I take issue with that idea.

Like, it is intensely important to me, whatever happens in my daughter's

relationship future, that she is not burdened with all the caretaking responsibilities

and also that she is also in a relationship that is healthy and equal and all that.

Like, you know, I think if we just accept lazy gender generalizations,

we make a rod for our backs.

If we say that our daughters are always the ones you have to look after elderly parents,

for example.

No, I think that's a perfect thing.

I don't think that's what this is about.

It's about the relationship you have and how you feel when your children

hit adolescence and pull away from you, because no matter whether you identify

as a girl or a boy, you pull away from your parents and that's really healthy.

And if you don't, that's a problem and would be a red flag.

So it's not that we wish they didn't.

It's just sad because your relationship changes shape with your son in a much

more noticeable way.

So if boys pull away and I wrote this in my piece, girls tend to lunge forward

into conflict with their mothers.

I think that's really interesting.

Yeah.

And so the tears, what Abby and others can't understand about the tears, you miss

the absolute because there's an absence because they pulled away.

But there's no absence with your daughter.

There's more likely just to be conflict.

And again, it doesn't mean that the love's any different.

It's just a different dynamic that happens.

And I don't know, maybe it probably all settles.

I'm already seeing that it's starting to settle itself as my daughter gets

older as well.

My younger son's just gone into that teen tunnel.

And I feel exactly the same about him, quite grief stricken.

Not because I was in love with him or wanted him to be my boyfriend,

but because I still love him as much as I did when he was a little boy.

And I'm not saying he doesn't love me, but he doesn't love me in the same

with the same intensity as he did then.

And that is sad.

I think, though, that what so many people responded to is that grief.

And I feel that grief, though, also even with my daughter, like she needs me less

and less as she gets old.

She wants to be around less and less.

She cares about my opinion less and less.

That is a very real thing.

But don't you think that her retreat is replaced with conflict often, like

butting heads, not always, but often, whereas a boy's retreat, it's just empty.

It's just an absence.

What I struggle with is, and I've noticed this on TikTok broadly, the disdain

with which we talk about mothers.

And this wasn't necessarily Abbey.

This was the comments below.

So you said, Mayor, that there was an implication, that there was something

sexual. It wasn't an implication.

It was.

I know, but you know what?

I have to put my hand up and say, obviously, I think that's awful.

But the headline said the slowest breakup you'll ever know.

It made a direct comparison to a romantic relationship.

Because of the bigness of the feelings, not because of the...

Oh, I get that.

I know that's not what you were saying, but I mean, like...

But you were making an analogy with a romantic situation.

So that's a door that's open.

Fair enough.

You know what I mean?

The reason that I kind of maybe bristled at it at first is that I thought, I watched

that story be published.

I watched how much it was shared and I saw how many women related to it and felt

that words had been put around something.

And have we now made fun of an entire group of women who are trying to

articulate something that is impossible to articulate?

And there is a disdain and a disgust sometimes that we talk about mothers

with and even I saw this tone throughout of like, there's a joke online

about mothers of sons and how they're a certain personality type and they love

being a boy mom and all that kind of stuff.

And it's like...

It's like Karen again.

They're an easy target.

Moms are an easy target to look at.

Well, welcome to the universe of being a woman and parenting.

It's like people will treat...

And I'm going to add a mother this conversation a little bit here, right?

I bet that if anyone who's listening to this, who is not a parent, they would

definitely be able to pick in themselves and a million times in their group

when they've said shitty things about their partner's mother or their

friend's mothers or their own mothers.

Like, because you don't only have this relationship if you are a parent.

Once you are a mother, you suddenly...

I listen to people bitching about their mother-in-laws and I think,

oh my God, that's going to be me one day.

Is it Jesse?

Yes, that's going to be me one day.

And how can you talk about your mother so dismissively or your partner's mother

so dismissively because your perspective has shifted, right?

You're looking at it as the person who's being bitched about as opposed to the

person doing the bitching.

And that is just a universal truth about life, right?

But you are 100% right, Jesse, that mothers, especially older women,

or is the butt of the joke?

Well, that does have a read.

We'll put a link in the show notes and tell me what you think.

Do you think I explained it right?

Maybe you've got a different theory.

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

we release segments on Tuesdays and Thursdays just for mum and me out

subscribers to get full access.

Follow the link in the show notes and a big thank you to all our current subscribers.

So in very exciting, anxious, overwhelming news,

I'm partnering up with Monash IVF who are going to help me freeze my eggs.

There's an Australian influencer who is dividing opinion after she posted

about a paid partnership with an IVF clinic.

Tully Smife, who is a friend of the pod.

She's a lovely woman.

She recently announced that she had partnered with an IVF clinic to

document her egg freezing journey.

And that means that Tully is going to have her egg freezing paid for and

will be paid to document and share the process with her followers of whom

there are about 220,000.

So not an insignificant number.

Some people have supported her decision.

One comment said fertility help is so secretive.

I think someone sharing their journey will help so many and help to answer

so many questions.

This is more about understanding the process and education and helping

people have an idea of what to expect.

But others are deeply upset and troubled by the idea of someone being paid

by an IVF clinic to undergo treatment.

And they've said it's ethically wrong and it's upsetting given how

much people spend who are desperate to have a baby.

To me, they are two different things in terms of being ethically wrong and

how some people spend a lot of money.

But the people who are talking about the money, they've said, well,

it's fertility privilege, which we've talked about in a different context

on the podcast a few weeks ago.

The comments along those lines are things like when the choice or process

of having a child becomes a commodity, the ethics have to be questioned.

Another comment said, as a health professional myself, I see a few ethical

concerns, particularly around influences and paid partnerships within a healthcare

setting. There are so many people who cannot afford IVF.

And I feel that this could be a slap in the face for them.

Good on Tully for wanting to share.

I'd like to know would she still share if this was not a paid partnership?

And so on.

Now, what strikes me as really confusing about this is that you may not be aware,

but there've recently been a lot of new guidelines around what influences can and

can't post about.

One of the things they can't post about is sunscreen, because anything that is

seen to chemically change anything about the body, even vitamins, you cannot

take money. Even if you don't take money, you can't talk about it.

So I can't even, without any money, I can't go on my Instagram and say,

I really love this sunscreen.

It's the best I've ever used.

So it's confusing to me how for a medical procedure, you can accept money and

advertise a medical clinic.

So this seems like maybe it's a loophole.

Jesse, what do you think?

You can do the same with a nose job.

So I can accept a free nose job, then do a paid partnership.

And that is an operation and it's obviously elective.

I was also thinking, and again, social media is different.

But like you see ads for Panadol and there are absolutely loopholes.

So as long as it's clearly marked as an ad, you're saying it's okay for

someone to say, I froze my eggs.

I'm being paid to say this, because then won't you only say the good parts and

maybe not say the bad parts?

What I find funny about that is welcome to influencing.

Welcome to advertising, I guess.

Like it's not like in any other form of advertising, people talk about the

downside. Exactly.

And even like, this person got this for free.

Yeah, yeah, welcome to influencing.

Like, I think that that's the same with anything you're influencing.

To be completely honest, I find the ethics of this murky and I'm confused.

But also, I think this is really unfair on Tully, because it's being

advertised on radio all the time, as you say, other influencers have done it.

Yeah.

If I was Tully, who's pretty savvy and I signed this deal and I made those

videos, I would not have expected this blowback.

And I asked myself, would I have done it?

12 months ago, if someone tapped me on the shoulder and said, we will pay

for your egg freezing in exchange for you to take people through the process.

I think you would have.

I'd have really considered it.

I'd consider it because it's prohibitively expensive.

And just because you're an influencer doesn't mean you're rolling in it.

Like, this would have been a lot for Tully.

Well, it's Tully's job.

It's the same as a copywriter or a model or you are providing an exchange

of goods for services.

I'm concerned not about this individual deal.

I think that there are laws in place that protect false advertising.

This falls within them.

It's fine.

What perturbs me a little bit more is that egg freezing for a certain age

group of women is being sold to them now as if it was teeth whitening or

getting your hair done or a pedicure or like any kind of milestone, maybe.

Anything that you should consider doing.

And maybe that's a good thing.

We've had lots of discussions about this.

Maybe that's a good thing because it increases fertility options for women who,

you know, for a whole range of reasons, need that perceived safety net.

But my concern is, is that as soon as there is a real financial incentive for

this, because it is, as you say, Jesse, it's really expensive.

How much does it cost?

I know women who look egg freezing in Australia generally costs about 5,000

for the first cycle, but you've got to look at whether you just get the one cycle.

So based on the data, this is from the conversation, they say that an average

35 year old woman and remember that the advice would be that if you're

going to freeze your eggs, you do it before 35.

But let's say you're a 35 year old woman, tallies 36, you can expect to pay

between 14,000 and 16,000.

The data is really confusing because it is based on a lot of moving factors.

But let's say something around an 80% chance of having a baby.

And then once you get those eggs out to actually insert them back in and do all

that process is more thousands of dollars.

So very expensive.

And I know women, I'm sure that you do too, Jesse, who are going into debt to do

this, who are saving up to do this with no actual reason to doubt that they

might not be able to have a baby naturally with no actual evidence for it.

But because it has become so widespread everywhere they look, whether it's

paid or unpaid.

But isn't it about keeping your options open?

Well, of course it is.

It's about keeping your options open.

But I'm just a cynical alarm bell just rings with me about this idea that if

you are a successful woman in your early thirties, egg freezing should definitely

be on your list to tick off when maybe it should be and maybe it shouldn't be.

But it's kind of being sold to everybody as a blanket solution.

And I just, we don't know what the success rates are.

The whole lot of other things have to happen to get that baby in your arms.

You may never need them.

You might absolutely need them.

But it's just the more in your face it is, the more it's normalized and pushed to

you, the more you convince yourself that you do.

And I do worry that it's like an extra tax on women and an extra emotional tax

on women that might not be needed.

It's the normalization of it and the destigmatization in a lot of ways because

I have a lot of mates who have a lot of questions.

And if you're going to spend that much money, you want answers to your questions,

which is Tully in that way is doing a service.

Normalization can also lead to a lot of pressure and to commercial exploitation

because this is being sold as a service to people.

So when you go on a website or you try and do your research, the stats are

unclear because they're trying to sell it to you.

You know what I mean?

Like I find that hard as well.

And I think it's that.

I think that when any sort of medical intervention is being sold, then there

are obvious ethical questions.

But Tully is the exact target market, which is why they would have chosen her,

which is that she's 36.

She's in a long distance relationship.

And there are a lot of people following her who are in their late 30s who don't

have a partner.

So it's not even like a luxury necessarily.

They're just thinking, what else do I do?

And at the moment, the fertility advice is it's your best bet.

So again, I think we're blaming women and we're blaming Tully for an industry

that is new and that the regulations haven't caught up yet.

The hate on her and the slap on the face to the IVF, I think is a long shot.

I've got a recommendation before we go.

Are you watching the diplomat on Netflix?

I'm about to start.

I've had a couple of false starts with shows.

Everyone said watch Jury Duty, which I've started to do.

Not quite into it, which we can talk about it another time.

But I keep forgetting what I've got to watch next.

So I think you've got to watch the diplomat.

OK, right on your hand.

Ambassador Catherine Weiler, a Prime Minister, Nicolle Trowbridge.

Welcome.

Sir, it's an honor to meet you.

Honour to be met.

Someone is lowering a strike force into the Persian Gulf.

The President is sending you to stop a war before it starts.

Welcome to London, Ambassador Weiler.

Tell me how.

I'm the ambassador's wife.

My husband was an ambassador for a long time.

This will be an adjustment.

You need to lean into the Cinderella thing.

I'm not doing this the way you would.

That's fine, just under a row.

Everyone's recommending it to me.

I can't wait.

It stars Kerry Russell and it stars Rufus Sule, who is like a bit smirky

and a very hot dude called David Ghiassi.

And he, oh my God, he plays the British Foreign Secretary.

He's so hot.

Who knew politicians were so hot?

Anyway, the thing that's great about the show, at least very interesting about

the show is so Kerry Russell plays this amazing American diplomat.

And she thinks that when the show opens in the first episode, she thinks

she's off to Kabul to take up a US ambassador ship there.

She's incredibly competent and experienced in Middle Eastern issues.

She's married to another diplomat who's a bit of a legend, but a bit

problematic, Rufus Sule.

And then she gets thrown the curveball that, no, actually, we need you to go

and be the ambassador to Britain for a whole lot of complicated reasons.

And she's really pissed off about it, mostly because, and this is the thing

that everybody will talk about with this show, she is not the kind of

diplomat who just wants to sit around at garden parties, having tea and wearing

nice dresses.

She's like, I want to negotiate with terrorists kind of diplomat, right?

And she doesn't brush her hair, which is the most rebellious thing about the

show. And there's one of those moments where it just makes you realise how

every single woman on every single drama has really well brushed hair.

And she gets her husband to sniff her armpits and she hates clothes and

like all these things that are making that people are like, oh my god,

she's so brave for being on TV with like no makeup and unbrushed hair and

smelly armpits. Anyway, it's really good.

It's kind of pasty.

It's not very serious, really, because then there's sexual tension, there's

issues within her marriage. Is he a good guy? Is he a bad guy?

Oh, the British Foreign Secretary is hot.

OK, so it's pasty. It's fun.

It's called The Diplomats on Netflix.

Watch it now. And if you are looking for something to listen to right now,

we've got a new podcast.

It's called 456 Club, and it's for women in their 40s, 50s or 60s, or any

woman, maybe in their 30s, Jesse, who wants to know what that phase of life

is going to be like. It's hosted by Narelda Jacobs and Catherine Mahoney.

And it's good.

Yeah, they're a hoot.

It's like your favourite group chat.

It will make you sort of laugh and think and feel very connected because

there's something very specific about that life stage.

We touch on some of those issues on this show, but they're going to be

discussing things like sex and dating and ambition and motherhood and not

motherhood and what you're not all the things you're not supposed to say

about aging bodies.

Out louders have been asking for this show for years, and I am so excited

that we can finally deliver it with such great hosts.

It's brilliant. 456 Club, get it in your ears.

Thank you for listening to today's Mamma Mia Out Loud.

The executive producer was Tulissa Bazaas with Assistant Production

from Susanna Makin and Audio Production from Lea Porges.

And we'll see you tomorrow. Bye.

Bye.

Shout out to any Mamma Mia subscribers listening.

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

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

There is a link in the episode description.

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.