Mamamia Out Loud: The Bizarre Magic Of 'Girl Math'

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Mamma Mia Out Loud!

Hello and welcome to Mamma Mia Out Loud,

what women are actually talking about on Monday, August 7th.

I'm Mia Friedman and I'm driving the show today because Holly Wainwright is Paulie.

Very sad. I'm worried about today with Mia driving. I'm Claire Stevens.

And I'm Elfie Scott, stepping in for Holly.

I do not have a British accent or thoughts that are nearly as coherent as hers, unfortunately.

On the show today, model actress M Radikowski says her weight loss after splitting with her husband

meant that she got more modelling work and made more money.

So is it a good thing that she's complaining about that?

Plus with the shocking allegations against a Queensland childcare worker,

there's an easy way to protect all children in care.

According to one woman, aren't we doing it?

And Claire is going to teach us girl maths, but first...

In case you missed it, a World Cup update from your enthusiastic

but technically unqualified sports reporter, me.

US soccer fans are devastated because the US,

even though they have won the most recent World Cup they were the reigning champions,

they are actually out of the World Cup after losing to Sweden last night

in a dramatic 5-4 penalty shootout.

There's a lot of talk today about Megan Rapinoe,

often described as the best female footballer in the world.

She's amazing.

So she's the one that you might remember from the last World Cup, had the pink hair

and got into a fight with Donald Trump, who was president at the time.

Exactly.

So she has a lot to do with literally putting women's football on the map.

But for Rapinoe, this World Cup marked her final tournament.

She had previously announced she was retiring after it.

But she missed a penalty kick, absolutely crucial penalty kick.

So it was nilol.

They do the penalty shootout at the end.

She missed hers despite being the best in the world, completely shanked it.

And she laughed.

There are a lot of American fans saying that they find it insulting and arrogant

and she wasn't grateful for having the opportunity to represent her country,

which I find fascinating because watching it last night,

I thought it was the most human response.

And she said afterwards,

Yeah, it's a, it's a tough one and there's just some, some dark, dark comedy

and me missing a penalty in my last game ever.

So I felt like you were watching somebody who went,

I should have retired earlier to choose to retire after that

and then not have a great game and then kind of move.

It is dark comedy.

She biffed it.

She's the best soccer player in the world and she biffed it.

And she knew it was funny.

Like, I think it's fine to have a little laugh.

I was an inappropriate laugh.

Me too, yes.

I laugh sometimes when bad things happen.

Sometimes I laugh when people hurt themselves.

Sometimes I laugh just in bad situations.

It's just an unconscious response.

It's involuntary.

Yeah.

It was so clear.

She wasn't like going, haha.

The thing I thought was more funny.

And I don't know whether it's true or whether it was a media beat up,

but the entire city of Melbourne were furious at the American team

because they'd done from one of their social accounts,

a tweet saying, looking forward to playing in Melby tonight.

Yeah.

So it was ahead of last night's game and they referred to Melbourne as Melby

and Melbourne lost it.

A lot of people lost it.

The tweets were hilarious.

They ranged from just a simple excuse me to a journalist

who said calling Melbourne Melby should lead to immediate prison time.

It's not Melby.

It's Melby.

It's Melby.

I thought it was Melby.

I'm pretty sure I texted you saying have fun in Melby this week.

I must have thought it was a typo.

She means Melby.

All that has been purposefully ironic.

But most importantly for us,

the Matildas are playing tonight against Denmark.

I will be in front of my television.

I assume you two will be in front of yours.

Yeah, absolutely.

I'm so excited.

I'd also like to hear from the Outladders.

What is the slang for the city in which you live?

And I'd particularly keen to hear.

I mean, obviously it's Brizzy.

Brizzy.

Tazzy.

Tazzy.

Perth.

I don't know how you make Perth.

No.

It's not Perthy.

No.

Tell us Outladders.

A lot of women lose weight when they're heartbroken or under a lot of stress.

But what if the less you weighed, the more you earned at work?

That would be pretty messed up.

And yet that is how modeling works.

This week, model Emily Radikowski, known as Emarata,

spoke about this on her podcast.

Here's what she had to say.

I lost a ton of weight after my son was born.

And I was really in this super anxious space.

And I could not gain the weight back.

And in the past year, I have gained weight back.

And it was really frustrating for me because I actually didn't like being that skinny.

It's weird though because fashion, definitely, like I started walking more shows.

I was getting booked for things that I hadn't been booked for before.

And, you know, when you talk about body ideals, that's really scary.

And I could not gain weight.

I couldn't enjoy food.

And it wasn't about my body image.

It was about my anxiety.

And if I'm ever stressed, the first thing that happens is I stop eating.

It's just how my brain works.

I can't.

Elfie.

And Rada is disappointed in the fashion industry for perpetuating its extremely skinny,

unrealistic, damaging standards.

Is that progress that she's calling it out or hypocrisy because she benefits from it?

It is both.

And I too cannot, Mia.

I cannot with Em Rada talking about body politics.

Like, I do think that there is value in somebody of her stature in the fashion industry

who is very speaking about the terrible things that happen,

the way that body positivity doesn't actually unfold behind closed doors

and the way that the fashion industry is continuing to perpetuate a certain body type.

But it frustrates me so much that she thinks she can have her cake metaphorically

and eat it too because she can take the jobs, she can take the money,

and then she can comment on it afterwards.

I think that is the most painful hypocrisy.

And I think the fact that she speaks about this retrospectively

and she says, you know, it's disgusting that the fashion industry would do this.

And yet there are photos of her on the runway.

They're all the photos of her on Instagram during that period

where she's promoting that body type to the many thousands of young women

who happen to follow and really respect her.

And it drives me up the wall.

And I know, Claire, that you are going to devil's advocate me now.

I know that you are going to try and bring logic and rationality to this.

But I'm just so cross about it.

I think it is the most frustrating and egotistical thing to talk about this in this way.

I am going to devil's advocate.

And I don't know why because I also have very strong feelings about Radikowski.

But one thing I do want to point out,

she's been criticised for stating her weight and her height

and how low her weight got.

And people have said that goes against all the guidelines

against reporting on disordered eating,

which it does.

However, the US has very, very different guidelines on this stuff.

Australia is really good at it and America isn't.

So whenever I hear an American say something like that,

I am conscious that they don't have the same kind of media culture as we do.

So I don't know if we can necessarily hold her to account

for kind of missing the mark on that one.

I also do think it's important for a person in a position of privilege

when it comes to her body to share that even she notices

how her industry behaves towards her when she loses weight.

And I have sympathy for anyone struggling with issues around body size and eating.

I think we often have issues on both ends of the spectrum

and they both deserve respect and sympathy.

However, if we are being asked to have empathy

for someone who felt they struggled with their body during a really hard time

and feel they have been treated differently by the world at a different size,

can we talk about the other more common end of that spectrum

that comes with far more stigma?

Because most people in 2023 struggle with gaining weight

and having horrible thoughts and feelings about our bodies

that are then entirely reinforced by society.

Whereas for her, the fact that she had lost weight was praised

and so she doesn't deal with the same stigma.

Most average people do.

And can we acknowledge that Emrata was posting photos of her abs

in the weeks after giving birth and that actively harms those women

for whom are being body shamed because they have put on weight

when they are stressed and not actually lost it?

I'm going to shock everyone, including myself,

by defending one part of this.

I heard you talking about this on the spill, Elfie,

which is why we want to talk about this today.

And you were saying how if she was really serious about making change

she shouldn't have taken jobs and she should have walked her talk, essentially.

I disagree with that because I think that this is her job.

So she profits from this system, but she's a woman who has to earn money.

She's a single mother. She has to support her child.

So to say, oh, she's got enough money,

she should have said no to the jobs that came in when she was skinny

because she was skinny. I don't agree with that.

I think you have a fair point. I know that it is complicated

and I know people have to support themselves.

I would say that Emrada is an extraordinarily privileged person.

I would say that she has many different avenues for making money

that other people don't have access to.

It's the part where she calls herself an activist.

I'm not here to be the feminist police and quibble with that.

But the idea of being a body image activist,

she wrote this memoir about her body called...

I think it was called My Body.

I feel like the word gaslighting is overused a lot.

But in this case, I feel like it's true

because gaslighting is the idea of someone telling you

that the objective truth is actually not the truth.

So she talks about how terrible this system is,

but then she never acknowledges her own role in perpetuating it.

This is it. This is the absolute crux of this argument against her

in that she always tries to portray herself as a passive observer

in her own life, a victim, somebody who doesn't have choice.

And that frustrates me because of anybody, she is somebody with choice.

But then isn't that her point, Elfie and Claire?

Isn't she saying, I am held up as being the hottest woman

and yet even I couldn't book these runway shows for these designers

because I wasn't skinny enough?

I also question that.

Isn't that a messed up system?

That is the other thing.

I simply don't believe that M. Radicowski,

who is and always has been absolutely tight.

If you could draw the beauty ideal.

No, but that's not catwalk thin.

So catwalk thin is very different.

It is editorial model thin.

It is movie role thin.

It is getting paid millions of dollars for an Instagram post thin.

It is.

And for her to say that she has missed out on opportunities

because of her body,

for her to claim some sort of victimhood status for that,

I think is totally disingenuous.

But let's, you know, zoom out a little bit and she is right.

Like for the same reason that El McPherson never did much catwalk.

There's a certain look and a certain body shape

that is right for the catwalk.

I would also say that she's almost too famous for the catwalk.

So she brings with it a lot of things that a brand might not want,

like the overt sexuality that fashion brands might not want.

It's like M. Radicowski was born with 80%.

But 99 is a beauty privilege.

Do you know what I mean?

She was born with 99% of beauty privilege

and she's complaining about the 1% that she wasn't born with.

And it's like, I was born with 5% beauty privilege.

I could spend my life being like, well, why wasn't I six foot tall?

She has got so many opportunities on account of how she looks

that I think her then arguing

that there are a tiny proportion of jobs she doesn't get

is completely, I don't feel sorry for her.

Maybe you don't have to feel sorry for her,

but isn't it still an interesting point?

So many years ago when I took a photo of my stomach

and put it on social media in the Daily Mail

wrote that Mia Friedman shares confronting photo of her stomach

and it started this whole thing.

Hashtag confronting stomach.

And my point was that I'm a size 10.

Sometimes I'm a size eight.

And if my stomach is considered confronting,

how messed up is this world?

And everyone was like, yeah, yeah, good on you, Mia.

How is that different to what Emily Radikowski?

Because I've got a lot of privilege as well.

Because there's no hypocrisy in what you did.

Whereas I think with Em Radder, the thing that frustrates me is that her

and I think Laura Brodnick said this on the spill,

that her Instagram, her podcast and her writing is entirely at odds

with her Instagram and her modeling

and the marketing of her bikini brand.

It is like they are two different people arguing with each other,

but it is the one person.

So she's saying it's so unfair the industry gave me these opportunities

and then you have a look and she is selling her bikinis in the body

that she says, why was the industry profiting from this?

But that's her tool.

That's what she sells.

Like that's her job.

Her body is her job.

Like she has to, right?

So when she puts that photo up of her body after having the baby,

that's basically saying, I'm back.

I'm ready to work.

I'm valuable again because I wasn't when I was pregnant.

I can understand that.

All I want is for her to acknowledge what that does to other women.

Yes, she is criticising the industry.

There are some models who criticise the industry and you think,

yeah, you're in that industry and you've had to engage in disordered habits.

You've had to do things in order to fit in.

Whereas I look at Em Radicowski and she is actively contributing to this industry.

If you look at her Instagram, it is again as though the male gaze has drawn what it wants

and she is giving that.

I feel a bit of tension around the idea of criticising her for sharing images

of her body when she wasn't well.

But that's because I think-

But that's the patriarchal bargain.

So it's the women who profit from the system that oppresses women, right?

I don't think we can criticise those individual women and I do.

But I don't think the answer is for them to put on a parka and stop working

and stop earning money.

I don't think that's the solution either.

But what I do think that she needs to start doing very seriously

is considering the stories of the women around her

actually looking at the world outside of her own individual experience

because she is so limited by the fact that all of her commentary around these stories

is based on her own experience.

And I think that's not feminism, that's just benefiting you.

Yes.

Hi guys, it's Emily Radikowski with Mumma Mia Out Loud.

We're going to have fun.

If you want to make Mumma Mia Out Loud part of your routine five days a week,

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

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

and a big thank you to all our current subscribers.

Just a heads up, this is a bit of a heavy conversation.

So if you have little ears around, maybe skip ahead.

A 45 year old Gold Coast man was charged last week

with 1,600 child sex offences committed in Australia and overseas

over a period of 15 years from 2007 to 2022.

An opinion piece on Mumma Mia by Virginia Tapscott has gone viral after she asked

why CCTV is not being used in daycare centres and kindergartens across the country

to protect vulnerable babies and children.

CCTV is already in use in some childcare centres to protect children and staff,

reassure parents, resolve disputes and for training purposes,

but it's by no means the standard.

Most CCTV in childcare centres does not record sound as well,

which effectively mutes any incriminating conversations

or maybe terse words that childcare workers are having with children.

There are a lot of arguments for the installation of CCTV.

Some believe that video footage of what goes on in childcare centres

can only improve transparency,

but others say it could shatter the image of childcare businesses

that they've sold to parents.

Mia, you are the only parent in this room.

Do you have any strong feelings?

Well, my first instinct was like, why don't they all have it?

And then I was reading more in Virginia's piece,

and the arguments against it, they're a couple,

but they're not terribly convincing.

One is the dangers of using it as a supervisory tool,

rather than it's sort of intended purpose of reviewing incidents

and monitoring suspicious activity.

So there's that sense of, oh, we won't look after the kids.

We'll watch them on the cameras kind of thing.

And we should start by saying that this is so rare,

like most childcare centres,

are amazing and underpaid, and we love you,

and there are many out louders who are within your community.

The other reason, of course, that the centres say

that I want to install it is an invasion of privacy.

They say it's off-putting for educators,

and it can lead to unnecessary,

really time-consuming investigations into minor disputes.

Like, my child got bitten at daycare, what happened,

and then everyone's got to go back through the footage,

and it can take a really long time.

I also want to acknowledge how horrific this news story is

about the former childcare worker, but also how rare it is.

And as a rule, your child is safe in daycare.

Both my brothers work in early childhood education,

so I asked them quite aggressively today,

why aren't there CCTV cameras at your work?

There's no good reason, and I started doing a yell,

and they both replied, there are.

Cameras?

Yep, everywhere, in every room.

At the centres they've worked at, there has been CCTV.

So it's dependent on state legislation, as Alfie said,

and who owns the centre, and so on,

but a lot of centres do have it.

And a majority of educators fully support it,

because they want to be protected.

So if there are accusations against them,

they want to know that there's a record.

Virginia Tapscott argues that CCTV should also have audio,

and it was kind of at that point that I started wondering,

how far does this argument go?

Because then, okay, so it should have audio.

Should it be available to be live-streamed to parents?

Should parents be able to just check in

and see what their kids are doing?

And we're already getting pretty close to that

with all the updates from childcare.

But if we are streaming childcare to parents,

if we are asking for audio and visual

and all of this stuff to be going on day-to-day,

we're completely taking away trust from the professionals.

And I feel like this discussion

is further undermining educators

and essentially saying they cannot be trusted

to look after children.

And my brothers both said their response

to the horrific allegations

was that they have no idea how it happened,

because in the centres they work at,

you're never alone with a child?

That's like the policy?

I remember that from when my kids were at school.

They're like, how did that happen?

So in her story, Virginia Taps got rights.

Parents are largely dependent on educators for information.

Educators who might shield parents

from more distressing details

or be unwilling to share details

which compromise their tenure or the image of the facility.

In recent years, the childcare sector

has become strangely immune to scrutiny.

Childcare activism in large parts of the media

and on the part of influential advocates

has meant the sector has become somewhat untouchable.

That is patently untrue.

In recent years, we require more and more education

for people working in the sector.

It's getting to the point where you need

university education in order to work.

You need more training.

They do all sorts of diverse learning training

and safety training

and you need all sorts of checks

to be able to work in childcare.

And there are more and more demands

on childcare workers' time

in terms of documenting everything throughout the day.

And we should also say that Virginia

has been outspoken on her belief

that children should be at home with their mothers

or their fathers, but they should not be in daycare.

And I think that's an important thing.

This is just an opinion piece.

The idea of CCTV footage was interesting,

but it's all coming through that lens

of she believes the best place for children at home.

CCTV in childcare centres makes sense.

It's in a lot of childcare centres.

I'm sure that increasingly it will be

because there does seem to be good arguments for it,

but I guess I wonder, you know,

these educators are underpaid and they're not respected.

And I wonder if this argument just goes further and further

down that line of undermining them.

Yeah, there's a theory that if, you know,

childcare centres actually put all of this money

and resources into getting CCTV set up,

then actually it's diverting resources

and attention away from training.

It kind of gives people a false sense of security

when there are other things that could be

ensuring the safety of children.

And also interesting one, open to hacking as well,

CCTV, which is another concern

that I'm sure parents would not be super happy with

and it has happened before.

The other thing that is interesting

is what you said, Claire, about

would parents then want to livestream it

and watch it all day?

I've been reading a little bit about

how this is becoming more and more of a problem

for childcare workers and daycare providers

and educators, even in primary school,

where there is this desire

for constant real-time updates, photos,

little messages.

I know that when my youngest child was finishing,

and this is like 10 years ago,

was finishing kindergarten already every day,

you'd go and read and it would have a little thing

about what each child had done

and a little photo of each of them

that then gets printed out and then gets put in a book.

That's a lot of time that those educators

have to spend instead of reading a story

or talking to a child about their painting, you know?

We're doing a lot of documenting

and the more you document, the less you can engage.

I wonder if that's a helicopter thing yet again,

this idea that we expect constant real-time updates.

So it's interesting, even people at doggy daycare,

where my dogs might go,

I get like three or four videos in a day.

Sometimes I'm just like,

I send her there so I don't have to do it.

I don't want to look at her face.

Mother Mia, out loud!

First there was girl dinner and now there's girl maths

and I've never been more obsessed with a mathematical concept

in that I don't know a single other mathematical concept.

Now, we're in a cost of living crisis

and economists are using all sorts of big words

to explain what we should be doing,

but there are economists and then there are women

who I might add are statistically better

at managing their money than men

and this might explain why.

So when out loud last week sent me a TikTok

of a segment from a New Zealand radio show

called Fletch, Vaughan and Haley

and it's called Girl Maths

and what they do is they get women to call in

with something they've purchased for a lot of money,

so say a $400 handbag

and all the female producers on the show

and the female host justify

why that's actually a really good purchase in this economy.

Girl Maths exclamation mark, help exclamation mark.

Oh, okay.

I just bought the Deadly Pony's Mr. Moulton tote.

Oh, la, la.

Help me justify it.

Oh, my God, man.

Okay, how much is one?

That's $1,000, that's $1,000 back.

Oh, wow.

I have a Deadly Pony's handbag.

I've had for five years,

so now you're at $200 a year.

You're less than a dollar a day.

Mine wasn't $1,000, so I'm even smaller than that.

So they talk about sophisticated economic concepts

like cost per wear, resale value,

the item having multiple purposes, and so on.

One brilliant example was a woman who was considering

getting really expensive hair extensions

for her wedding, like $5,000,

and she just didn't know if she could justify the cost.

But Girl Maths actually proved

that if she looked back on her wedding photos

and hated her hair,

she'd probably feel the need to get remarried

in the years to come,

which would cost, say, $50,000,

so by getting the $5,000 hair extensions,

she was actually saving $45,000.

Oh, I'm so here for this.

It's faultless.

It's faultless.

Now, I've been actively participating in Girl Maths forever

without actually realizing it.

Same.

I just didn't know there was a name for it.

I called my sister a few days before my wedding

because I'd found a dress I really liked for my reception,

but I just didn't know if it was ridiculous

to spend more money on a second outfit

when I'd spent more money than I ever had on this event.

But she was like,

you don't want to look back at your wedding photos and wonder

not when you've spent so much money.

You can't put a price on that.

No.

So you simply have to spend hundreds of dollars

on this second dress

just to further validate the money that you've already spent.

And we discussed resale value,

which I did end up reselling it

for almost what I purchased it for.

Can we ask for the dollar figure?

Yes, it was $500,

and then I literally resold it for, like, $450.

Not bad. That's a $50 dress.

You couldn't have rented it for that much.

No.

There is the possibility of renting it out.

That's how women justify things.

You're in profit.

But the thing is,

I'm a lazy girl.

I'm not going to rent it out.

So I might sell it once.

But even that is a lot of admin.

So on the radio show,

the women describe girl maths as a lifestyle and a delusion,

which is exactly what it is.

Elfie, when have you used girl maths?

I don't know if I use girl maths very regularly.

I'm a very conservative shopper,

but I do currently have a girl maths issue

that I would love to bring to the table.

So as I have mentioned before on the podcast,

I had a hair-dying disaster recently

that made me cry in a salon.

And now I have slightly strange hair.

So my hair, it's fine.

It is fine.

It has a dye over it at the moment

that is soon to wash out

and will reveal the nightmare underneath

that makes me look like a 2009 emo.

Now, I know full well

that if I get a dye job to repair this

and maybe push it in a direction that I like,

it will be like $500.

Is it worth it on the basis that, A,

I don't like my hair.

I don't like how I look in the morning when I get up.

And also, B, my boyfriend laughs at me quite a lot.

Is $500 worth that much?

Absolutely.

It's worth it for so many reasons.

One, consider the amount of money you spend on your appearance.

Makeup, clothes, all of that.

To sacrifice that.

Do you know what I mean?

No, you're absolutely right.

To sacrifice that with hair you don't love.

It's a mathematical equation.

That's just a vibe.

I can do better than that.

Because I think that when you're feeling bad

about your hair, for example,

and you're not spending the $500,

you are much more likely to spend money

on other things.

Clothes, makeup, a new pair of glasses,

jewelry, things to fill that hole in your self-esteem.

Fill the hair hole.

Yep.

They could need to just be spent on hair.

As we know how problematic this is,

please don't cancel us.

We understand.

I'm going to tell you my girl, Math and how it works.

Sometimes when I park,

and I don't get a parking fine,

like if I think I could park there

and it would be really convenient,

but I could get a parking fine

and it would be like $120.

So I'll drive around the block

and I'll park a bit further away.

And then I will say,

I just saved $120.

The things I could spend that on.

And I do.

Because I'm like, I just made a profit.

That's the best way to look at the world.

You must be happy every day.

Similarly, when I buy something on sale,

say I buy something for $100

and it was 50% off, so it cost $200.

I then have another $300 to spend.

You've made money.

Of course.

I made a profit.

So I asked around the office

and it took a very little explanation

for people to know exactly

what I was talking about.

And these were some of the further principles

of GirlMath's.

I feel like if I'm paying for something with cash,

it's basically free.

Absolutely.

If I pay in cash,

it didn't come out of my bank account.

That's free money.

GirlMath to me is getting Ubers everywhere

because I don't have a car.

I'd have to spend so much money on Ubers

to pay for the upfront cost of a car.

Then plus maintenance, registration,

insurance, petrol, all that stuff

that comes along with a car.

Plus, even if I had a car,

I'd still be getting Ubers to some places.

So getting Ubers saves me money.

Could I get public transport?

So you're in profit.

Yes, but that's not part of the equation.

This one I loved, which was.

If I'm looking at buying something online for $60,

and I get to the checkout

and shipping is an extra $20,

but I get free shipping if I spend $100.

Then I'm definitely spending that extra $40

and in my head, I saved $20 on shipping

because even though I spent that extra money

to get to my $100 total,

I got a tangible product in exchange for it,

whereas shipping is intangible

and I get absolutely nothing from it.

Again, full-proof logic.

Absolutely.

Also in airports,

Money doesn't count.

Things don't cost money.

Truth.

Money is free.

Yes.

That's the only way you can not pass out

when you have to pay like $10 for a coffee.

Yes, because money and time are not real in airports.

Everyone knows that.

Can I say something about this concept?

So we're calling it girl maths, right?

And I would like to point out

that on the radio segment that you showed me, Claire,

the guy in the radio studio is always like,

Oh, he is yelling.

He is so upset about girl maths.

And what I would like to say to him

and to any other man who has an issue with this

is that female purchases are seen as frivolous.

Female purchases are seen as a needless.

And yet I think if you sat the average guy down

and asked him why he chose to spend $2,000

on a speaker system that you can't hear the difference on,

there would be no logic to it.

Preach.

They're hobbies.

They're hobbies.

You know, like my hobby might be doing

like a little Pilates class.

Their hobby will be thousands of dollars

for a golf membership,

thousands of dollars on golf gear,

thousands of dollars on what you've got to wear to golf.

Cycling.

It's just, oh my gosh,

don't even get me started on cycling.

Girl Maps is foolproof.

We are very good at money.

And in this financial crisis, we need more of it.

Just a quick recommendation before we go.

We've published a cover story on Mum Mia today

by Erin Docherty called

The Young Widows of Instagram.

Emily Hall on the club, no one wants to join.

Emily was 37 weeks pregnant when her husband,

who was just 29, died suddenly.

It's the most devastating story

about the simultaneous grief and joy of having his child

and the reminders of him everywhere

as she tried to raise this child

and not let something that happened to her at 30

be the end of her story.

But it's actually beautiful

because I also did a no filter interview with Emily this week.

And there's a group of these women

that you know they talk about.

The club no one wants to join.

There's a group of these women who have become widows

in their 20s or 30s.

I've got friends who it's happened to in their 40s

at a time when, as Emily says,

I didn't want this to be the end of my story.

I mean, how could it be?

She was 30 years old.

But even if you're 40 years old or 50 years old

or 60 years old,

it doesn't have to be the end of your story.

But these young widows all sort of found each other

on Instagram.

You know, there's Elodie Pullen, who's partner.

Chumpy Pullen died suddenly

and she went on to have his baby via sperm retrieval.

That was an amazing story.

It's actually a beautiful story

because it's about how grief and new love and life

and joy can exist simultaneously

and how it doesn't have to be the end of your story.

And there are certain questions that come up

and the only way to navigate them

is with a support network of people

who have been through the same thing.

So like, how do you care for a really young child

whose father's gone?

Or how do you date after loss?

And Emily talks about how it's really complex

being in a relationship after losing your partner

because you put that person on a pedestal

that no one else can reach

and you've got to navigate that.

And then the relationship that you have when you...

I won't even say move on with your life

because it makes it seem like you've just gone,

okay, well, close your next chapter.

But when you re-partner

or when you pick your life up again,

when you emerge from that intense period of grief,

you might be able to have another husband,

another partner, have more children.

And the relationship that you have

with the family of your first partner that you lost,

really, really beautiful story.

If you're looking for something else to listen to,

oh, our recaps of and just like that are going off.

We have recapped episode eight of and just like that.

I think it's called, and just like that,

Carrie is insufferable.

We had a bit of a conversation.

I spent most of the weekend texting with my girlfriend back,

fighting about how I thought Carrie was so annoying

and she wanted her to be with Aidan

and she thought Carrie was great.

And it was like, this is not even a real person.

Anyway, we have this conversation in this subs episode.

There will be a link in our show notes.

Thank you for listening to Australia's

number one news and pop culture show.

This episode was produced by Susanna Macon,

the executive producer is Eliza Ratliff

with audio production by Leah Porges.

Until tomorrow.

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.