Mamamia Out Loud: The Most Famous Thigh Tattoo On The Internet

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Mamma Mia Out Loud!

Hello and welcome to Mamma Mia Out Loud.

It's what women are actually talking about on Wednesday, the 2nd of August.

I'm Holly Wainwright.

I'm Mia Friedman.

And I'm Claire Stevens.

And on the show today, apparently teachers are quitting in droves

because modern children are awful, discuss.

What are we owed by the people asking us to fund medical treatment on GoFundMe?

And my passionate defence for why Harry Styles needs to keep his ex's name on his thigh.

But first, in case you missed it,

people would rather have an electric shock than be left alone with their thoughts.

In news close to my heart this week,

there's new research out of California, which has confirmed what we all suspect.

Participants sat a series of thinking periods,

which sound like hell, of between 6 and 15 minutes,

and rated their enjoyment and satisfaction, right?

About 50% of parties have fencerated their enjoyment as low.

I would rate mine as excruciating.

Overall, the subject said that they enjoyed activities like reading and listening to music

about twice as much as just thinking.

None of this is that surprising.

No, no, but so they have to sit in a room with no stimulation for 6 to 12 minutes.

And describe how they felt about it, right?

And then the researchers decided to take the experiment a little bit further.

For 15 minutes, they left participants alone in a lab room

in which they could push a button and give themselves an electric shock

if they wanted to, or they could just sit quietly with their thoughts.

Even though all of the participants had previously stated

that they would pay money to avoid being shocked with electricity,

67% of men and 25% of women chose to give themselves an electric shock

rather than just sit there and think quietly.

Because they were bored and they went, you know, it's fun.

Oh, wow.

Electric shocks.

Oh, it's something to do.

Curiosity, too.

How bad is it going to be?

Is it going to be a little one or a big one?

Like, at least that would be entertaining to think about for a while.

Like, hover your finger over it.

Oh, am I going to?

Am I going to?

I would so do it.

I remember as a kid feeling like I'd be very good if I went to prison

because I was very good at sitting with my own thoughts.

And it was like my favorite thing to just sit there and think.

And it is devastating to me now that I cannot do that.

And if I was in that experiment, I'd be shocking myself like,

that's not tomorrow.

I do think about prison and how that would be torture for me,

the lack of access to stimulation.

I think about those shows like, what was the one in the wilderness?

Alone.

Yes.

Alone.

Yeah.

I'm upset even just by the name of the show.

I like being on my own.

With my own thoughts.

I like being alone.

Just, I need something to do.

Yeah.

But 15 minutes is not very long.

Sorry.

That is really, really troubling.

The people can't sit for 15 minutes.

15 seconds is too long.

An hour would be like a long time.

15 minutes.

Fine.

Welcome, friends, to the latest edition of What is Wrong with the World.

Jenna Price is a visiting fellow at ANU, a columnist for the nine newspapers,

and a very experienced academic with lots of experience in media and education.

And yesterday, she wrote a column that pulled absolutely zero punches.

The headline was,

Why are teachers struggling?

Because your children are awful.

Here's a little bit of what Jenna said.

The kids are behaving badly.

They monster their primary teachers.

They badger their high school teachers.

And by the time they get to university,

they argue the toss about every single grade.

They whine about group work and they want extensions

because they don't wish to be inconvenienced.

I'll defend active parenting and standing up for your children

when they can't stand up for themselves.

But there are limits.

And here are mine.

Your children should not be abusing a parent who comes in to help with reading groups.

Your child does not need your advocacy to get into the top sports team at school.

And your child, kill me, writes Jenna,

suggesting a high level of experience in this matter.

She does not need you to call their university tutor

to argue a mark on an assignment.

She says that as a university lecturer,

it's not even unusual at all for parents to call and advocate for their kids,

which boggles my tiny generation X brain.

But whole, in my helicopter parents cover story that I wrote for Mama Mia,

I talked about how parents will call employers of adults

to talk about their salaries.

All of these things freak me out enormously.

But it doesn't happen often.

It happens sometimes, but it doesn't happen often.

But the university thing freaks me out because I'm like,

really, I think we can all hold hands and agree

that the behavior Jenna is describing at school,

like abusing teachers and parents, all those things is abhorrent.

But the question is where it comes from.

And her theory, and it's tied in with the helicopter parenting theory,

is that we've got a generation of narcissists

and that parents are very much to blame for it.

Although I have every ounce of sympathy for teachers,

so I am fully team Jenna on that.

It does feel like the latest serve in a relentless on sort of attacks on parents.

No, I disagree.

I think it's an attack on children, really, more than the parents.

But I think it's calling out something that exists

and it's asking parents to consider,

no one goes, you know what?

I want to bring up my child to be a narcissist,

self-absorbed, selfish, none of those things.

What Jenna is trying to do and what I was trying to do with my piece

is saying what we think is helping our children,

helicoptering them, is actually not.

So it's actually about the children.

It's not just about the teachers and future employers

and their future partners.

It's actually about our obligation as parents to raise good humans,

decent citizens.

And by doing everything for our children,

you know, I just think the biggest way to see how things have changed

is that when we were younger, our parents said,

stop behaving like you're the center of the universe.

You're not the center of the universe.

Or when my mother didn't say this,

but a lot of mothers did when you were getting ready to go out

and you're like, oh, should I wear this?

No one's looking at you, Darl.

No one's going to be looking at you.

Now it's, oh, my God, let me take a thousand pictures,

put them on Facebook and share them with my friends

and send them to Nana.

You look so beautiful.

You are so beautiful.

I want to argue, though, that I don't think it's parents, right?

Because I think there's part of that.

And I, of course, helicopter parenting is a thing.

But as you've just said, and Jenna Price even says in her story,

she says, look, I doted on my children and I genuinely believed

and still do they're wonderful human beings.

But none of us think our children are the problem.

All of us think that we're doing a good job.

And yet clearly what these educators are saying is that, no,

children are worse than they've ever been.

I would argue that it's our narcissistic culture.

There has never been a bigger generation gap between the kids

and the teachers who are teaching them in terms of a lack of respect

for, well, miss, what do you know anyway?

I can literally search up the answer to any question I've ever got.

And anyway, I'm going to be a YouTuber and make a bajillion

dollars like that guy who invented Prime.

So miss, what are you telling me anyway?

The thing I love most about this article is the use

of the term narcissist and her exploration of narcissism

because I don't think I've heard children described that way.

See, that's funny to me because that was the bit that I didn't

because, of course, children are narcissists.

Like, look at a toddler.

That's the biggest narcissist you're ever going to find.

She's not talking about.

And then they get beaten out of them, though.

You know what I mean by life.

And she's saying that's not happening anymore.

Yes, it's not happening.

And so high school students, university students, people

entering the workforce are narcissists.

And when I heard it phrase like that, I thought, oh, my God,

that is exactly what it is.

I'm listening to stories from my mom and dad, both of whom

are teachers, and there is just this philosophy of rules

don't apply to me.

They can apply to everybody else.

They do not apply to me.

And I need special considerations.

I need everything to kind of be built around me.

And is the parents supporting them and not questioning that?

And I think this goes to the fact that as a culture, I think

you're right, Holly, that we live in a narcissistic culture,

but we also live in a culture that undermines educators

and undermines teachers.

100%.

And literally the Minister for Education will talk about

how teachers need more training and all of that.

And that means that when a kid's at school and something happens

that a parent doesn't agree with, they feel like they're entitled

to go in and question that and empower their child to undermine

the school system.

But it goes all the way back to when children are born.

Like children used to be called John and Mary.

Now, if someone says their name's John, you say, how do you spell that?

Because every parent wants their child to be special.

So that starts with the name that they give them.

And then a name that's different to everybody else's in the world

because we're so desperate to create these very special,

unique individuals and reflect that to the world.

I will say, I think that there is a class element here that perhaps

what we're seeing in some circles is not actually across the board.

What Jenna is talking about is universities.

And I can't imagine, for example, that there are many parents

and ladies who are ringing up and complaining to their bosses.

Like there is an element of privilege and an element of people

in a certain class who see their children that way.

And they treat education like a service.

Yes, yes.

And they're the customer and I get what I want.

Thank you very much.

And I do think that there are a number of factors that are not just

parenting going into this.

I think technology is a huge one.

That's what I think.

Because kids are sitting in a classroom and they are bored.

They are not stimulated and therefore they are rude.

Well, or they're doing what the kids in my kids' school are doing

is they're just on their iPads in the classroom with headphones in,

chasing their relentless need for distraction and dopamine hits.

Like I cannot fathom how teachers can deal with what we're throwing

at them in a modern classroom when you've got every distraction

in the world at their fingertips piled on top of this knowledge gap

that I'm talking about where they're like,

would you know anyway, miss, I'm going to be a YouTuber, whatever it is.

That job is getting harder and harder and harder every year.

So I think there's technology, the impact that that has on social skills.

There's the pandemic.

Both my parents say behavior has gotten so much worse since you came back

from remote learning.

There are a whole lot of social skills that went out the window.

And I also think flipping it a little bit and being empathetic of parents.

Yes, please.

I understand that there are historical reasons to have an instinct

to protect your child and not necessarily trust institutions.

You look at something like what happened with the Catholic church

and with a whole lot of Catholic schools.

And I understand that some parents look at where their children are.

They have heightened ideas, heightened sensitivity

around something going wrong, around their children being hurt.

Like there are social examples of why that protectiveness has kicked in,

but it 100% has resulted in us.

But there's one more thing I want to raise,

which I think is interesting to Jenna's piece.

We've extended childhood, right?

If your parent is calling your university,

the reason that boggles my Generation X brain

is because when I grew up, when you were 18, you're a grown-up now, right?

People left home younger.

People went to war at 14.

They were financially independent younger because it was easier.

There are a whole lot of reasons for this.

Again, I'm not blaming parents for this.

But now we don't look at a 21-year-old and go,

adult, we've extended childhood through to when do we consider them to be adults now?

I mean, I find that really interesting.

I push, pull with it myself because I feel strongly that once you're out of high school,

you sort your shit out.

But will I feel that way when it's really happening?

Or will I have the urge to be like, I'm sorry, Professor Price,

but you don't understand that Matilda just had a really bad week.

And, you know what I mean?

I mean, I don't know, maybe I will.

But that is unthinkable to me because once you were 18, you're a grown-up.

Someone bought their child a cake to celebrate and congratulate them

for doing nap lan, for doing a basic test.

So how does that fit in with...

You just want me to be on Team Helicopter,

and I am nowhere near as much of a helicopter as you.

I'm just throwing it down.

No, no, no, that's true.

Oh, that's completely true.

And the thing that's funny about that story, about the nap lan story,

which Mia could also have predicted very easily,

is that when we were working in Surrey Hills and Matilda was anxious about a nap lan,

I went and got her a cake that said,

well done on that plan, Matilda, at me.

I'm ripped before it.

Yeah.

When Billy did nap lan, I was like, oh, you did nap lan.

And that was only two kids.

Imagine how long my attention span would have lasted for three.

So yes, I think that's true.

But I do feel if there's an upside to all this abuse that parents are getting

for being too involved,

I feel like it's giving my slightly more or less a fair instinct,

like a good boost.

But then you get bashed for that too.

Like if you let your child be out roaming around,

or I don't really check whether they've done their homework or whatever it is,

then you're a terrible parent.

So how do you win?

Amanda C. Riley is a wife, a mother, a blogger, a teacher, a Christian,

and Amanda C. Riley is dying.

One of the top podcasts in the world right now is called Scamander.

It's about a charming, beautiful young woman, Amanda Riley,

who is apparently dying of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

She starts a blog detailing her cancer journey.

She shares photos of hospital visits and chemo across her social media,

and she gets the support of online and local communities to help pay for treatments

she can't afford herself.

We are talking $100,000 just in like online payments.

But there's just one small issue,

and it's that Amanda doesn't have cancer.

She's never had cancer.

I won't spoil the end of the podcast because it's gripping and brilliant,

but she raised a lot of money, none of which was ever going to cancer treatment.

Munchausens, a mental disorder where a person fakes an illness,

and Munchausens by proxy, a mental disorder where most often a mother

makes up fake symptoms or causes real symptoms to make it look like their child is sick.

They're very much in the zeitgeist right now, so another podcast, Believe in Magic,

tells the story of a sick young woman and her mother who started a cancer charity

and got worldwide attention when the daughter in fact never had cancer.

I have a lot of thoughts about what happens when these stories are front of mind,

but firstly, what do we think someone owes us when they're asking for money?

I wonder if you guys have the experience, I get quite a lot of DMs of people

just sharing a GoFundMe and saying, can you please share this, my sister-in-law sick.

Do you think that people have any reason to be checking things,

or do you think anybody owes us medical records or proof of what they're claiming is wrong?

It's interesting because I've done two interviews for NoFilter recently in this area,

and it needs to be said that Munchausen's and Munchausen's by proxy,

there's something different which is basically called scamming.

Malingering is the official term, and that is when someone basically makes up an illness

to try and make money, so Bel Gibson sounds like Scamander.

Munchausen's or Munchausen's by proxy can be making yourself actually ill

or making someone else actually ill.

It doesn't have to be necessarily to get money, it can be to get attention,

it can be to get care, it can be to get many things like that.

And then sometimes the two things overlap.

I'm a little bit like if you donate to someone, that's up to you.

You're not being forced to, I guess, in a way you're being guilted to,

but there's a lot of GoFundMe's out there,

a lot of people asking you to sponsor them to do a fun run or shave their head or do whatever.

It's up to you what you donate to or don't donate to.

I've always believed that so.

Lying about things is obviously shocking,

but if someone asks you for money and you give it to them,

I don't think they owe you anything.

No, I don't either.

I think if you've made the decision to hand it over then you've made the decision to hand it over.

It's interesting your question, Claire, about when people ask you to share and promote

because obviously that happens to me too.

And it's always a difficult decision because there are so many people who desperately need help.

Often you think, well, it would be great to amplify all these causes,

but because I can't verify all of these things,

I also don't want to promote and amplify a dodgy cause.

So very often that will be a very personal decision on amplifying something

that maybe there's a connection or you do know for whatever reason that it is 100% accurate.

Do you come to those with a degree of skepticism always?

I actually don't come to them with a degree of skepticism.

I spent a lot of time on GoFundMe last week when I was writing a story about domestic violence victims

and there are a lot of GoFundMe on there tragically for funeral costs for when women are murdered,

which has to be one of the most absolutely heartbreaking places to be.

I don't think it's my place or anyone's place necessarily to question.

How that money is being spent?

Yeah, or you know, could you really not afford it?

Like, I know there are cynical people who'll do that.

That's not my nature.

I kind of agree with you, Mia, that that's up to me if I want to help.

Nobody's forcing you to.

But I'm interested, Claire, in what you think happens if we do become too skeptical.

Like, obviously money is tight and there is no feeling more fury inducing

because it feels shameful to think you've been tricked into handing over your money

and your emotional energy into a scam, you know, whether that be one of these kind of health scams

or another kind.

Like, there's a very particular kind of fury that comes from that.

So if we are hyper aware of that, what do you think the danger is?

I think the danger is from listening to this podcast, Believe in Magic,

reading a bunch of stories about this stuff at the moment.

There's a Netflix documentary.

There's all these stories in the zeitgeist about basically women faking illnesses.

And my worry is that statistically, and the hard thing is that it does appear to be women,

which I think is a whole story in itself that women are clearly seeking something.

They're seeking attention or love or validation or money.

Yeah, or so.

Yeah.

It's just the economic situation that women are generally poorer.

Yes.

But I also think that statistically, if you zoom out, the problem really is that women's

health in general is not taken seriously enough.

And women's pain is dismissed.

There are conditions like endometriosis, which are under researched and underdiagnosed.

And often women are unwell for a really, really long time without having a definitive medical answer.

So that's so true.

Why are those two things linked?

Because I think if we are skeptical of women talking about their health,

because we are hearing all these stories about how women lie and how women love to be sick for attention,

then we automatically become skeptical of women talking about pain or being unwell or living with chronic illnesses.

And the fact is that often medicine doesn't have an answer.

So there are people who are really, really sick and yet might not have the kinds of paperwork that prove that they have a particular diagnosis.

And there are people who have cancer, whose hair doesn't fall out, who don't look sick.

Yeah, exactly.

And there have also been stories.

I remember when I was writing How to Be Perfect, which is my second novel, which is kind of in this world of wellness and things.

And The Mummy Bloggers, which was also about that.

And there's a woman, a very famous female mummy blogger from the U.S.

who was very, very public with her husband's cancer.

And everybody thought they were scamming and they attracted so much abuse and so much vitriol.

Everybody thought that this was entirely just a ploy for followers and therefore for money and for clicks.

And then he died.

And then what made that really interesting is that she was also very, very public from there.

Like there was a photo shoot at the funeral.

There were all those things which made people very suspicious, but it's just living in public.

You know, it was living in public and sharing a journey of used words, sharing a journey that you don't usually see.

And people were very distrustful of it.

It's a fascinating story.

And do you think also there's confirmation bias in there in terms of now the true crime genres upon us?

And even though these cases are outliers of women pretending to be ill, people then go looking to solve the mystery

and maybe catch someone out.

When it's like overwhelmingly, if somebody says they're sick, they are sick.

Well, it's like the Sandy Hook thing.

The conspiracy theorists who believe that the Sandy Hook shooting of kindergarten has never happened.

Now that's like completely crazy, but they will go looking for proof that it never happened.

And the reason I make that example is that the double pain of experiencing tragedy or illness or whatever it is and then having people not believe you.

I can't imagine that.

And there's another podcast at the moment that's top of the charts called The Retrievals.

And it's about women who basically went in for egg retrieval procedures and they had no pain relief because the pain relief was being taken by a nurse who had a substance abuse problem.

And in that story, the real kind of...

They kept being told, oh, no, you've had it.

You've had it.

And they're like, I'm in agony.

No, no, you've had it because she was replacing it with saline solutions.

She was replacing fentanyl with saline.

And to me, like listening to that podcast at the same time as listening to Scamander, I was thinking, well, no, the fact is there are stories everywhere of women's pain and women's illness just not being taken seriously.

And instead, we're sort of being trained to question it.

I remember in my own life in the last few years, there was somebody kind of threw out circles, not a close friend, but a friend of a friend who was unwell.

And there was talk about, hmm, but is it that bad?

Any invisible illness, particularly as you've already said, particularly women.

It's like, hmm, you know, really, are you sure you can't do that thing that I need to do?

I have one question that I probably should know the answer to.

Is there a way of telling whether or not a go fund me or whatever is legitimate?

So the hard thing is, right, that medical records are private.

So if I have a concern that somebody has a go fund me and they aren't really sick, I don't have the right to call up and get proof of that.

And then the question becomes, somebody like Belle Gibson writes an entire book about having cancer and her publisher is questioned about, well, why did you not check?

And the question is, can you really check?

Do you even have the power to check?

What is the onus on the individual to provide their own medical documents, which by definition are private?

And so with a go fund me.

Well, if you want a lot of money from a publishing company and a book deal, you give proof, you know, and you have no problem with that.

You can talk to my doctors here in my medical records.

I think if you are the one that wants the book deal and wants the money, if someone asks that you can either choose to give it or not, and they can then choose to give you the book deal or give you the donation on go fund me.

So I think on go fund me, the hard thing is that often people don't care about medical.

I feel like I don't need to see them.

It would be so sad if we just started to become cynical about the desperate plight of people who are unwell or experiencing tragedy.

Because I think normal people, normal people don't want to ask for money.

Normal people don't want to ask for help.

I do wonder if these stories are kind of providing a little bit of bias in terms of how we see women's health.

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.

Harry Styles, pop star and imaginary boyfriend of generations of women across the world has just finished his world tour.

You may have seen him in concert.

I did.

I did.

It's been very busy.

I think he was touring for almost two years.

He's now having a bit of a vacay in Europe and he's been spotted with a tattoo that is dividing the internet.

The 29 year old is living his best life currently on a celebrity packed boat with the likes of James Corden and singer Lewis Capaldi.

Eagle-eyed fans have noticed that he's got this tattoo they haven't seen before on his leg.

An incursive font, it's the word Olivia, who is his ex-girlfriend of course, Olivia Wilde.

Now, don't think the tattoo is very new because they broke up in November 2022 and it would be a rare man that would get a tattoo of his ex-girlfriend's name.

So that was a good nine months ago.

Just under that tattoo on his leg, in the same font and everything, it says Colazione, which is Italian for breakfast.

So I don't know how seriously we should take it.

I want a breakfast tattoo.

It's true.

People are saying all sorts of things.

Some are claiming that Olivia is actually a tribute to a song by his former band One Direction.

Another is saying the whole Olivia tattoo is actually sad to think about because Bro probably thought they were going to be end game.

Now, they're not the first high profile couple to deal with the tattooed aftermath.

I didn't think anybody's still got tattoos of people's names on them.

Oh yeah, they do.

My rule is that you can get tattoos of your children's name or your parents' name because those things can't change.

You know what I mean?

Those things will always be empirically true.

Yes.

But partners come and go.

Pete Davidson, remember, got several tattoos of Ariana Grande.

That was before he started dating pretty much every famous woman on the planet.

Didn't he get like 19?

He got a ridiculous amount of tattoos.

He got several.

And then he got a tattoo on his collarbone when he was dating Kim Kardashian that said my girl is a lawyer.

That's got a little bit more longevity because he could find another lawyer.

And maybe he could have a daughter who became a lawyer.

Who knows?

I reject the premise that you should not have your ex's name tattooed on your body.

I am actually going to fiercely argue that Harry should keep that tattoo and not go the famous Johnny Depp,

why no forever route.

Remember when he in the 90s, so back before Johnny Depp was a problematic idiot.

He had Winona Forever on his own because him and Winona Ryder were the coolest couple.

And when it broke up, he famously got it changed to why no forever,

which also turned out to be true and more end game than the Winona tattoo.

True.

But I am a little bit troubled by the trend.

Well, I don't think it's a trend.

It's just a fact that people now when they break up with a partner will,

for example, scrub their social media.

So they will make sure that their Instagram feed no longer has any trace of that person,

even if they were together for years and years and years.

And personally, I think that this is misguided because I think the narrative that there's

only one kind of relationship and it's one that lasts forever is kind of bullshit.

If you live a long life and you have quite a lot of relationships, you're lucky enough

to have loved more than once.

All of those experiences make you who you are.

And I don't think that with the very, very clear exception of a traumatic or abusive relationship,

obviously discount those because, yes, we want to erase those because we can't actually

emotionally erase them, but we want to erase the evidence of that.

So we're not constantly triggered by it.

But just your standard run of the mill things didn't work out.

It ended whatever.

Why are we so keen to pretend that none of that ever happened as if there's something

wrong with having loved before?

Like keep a track of it.

Have the list of all the names down the leg.

Like it's fine.

I think maybe Harry is very evolved.

I think so too.

And he's like, I dated her.

That was a phase in my life.

We made a movie and he likes to have it there.

That's what I think would be lovely is like, even if that relationship only lasted a year,

18 months, it was probably a bloody good year.

Oh, Holly.

They were having very good sex.

And they were all over.

They were so loved up.

It was so extreme.

Remember that and dive into it and swim around in it every now and again.

Hello.

I don't think you're thinking about Harry.

You're not thinking about when he meets someone else.

How are they going to feel?

There's lots of evidence of Olivia.

It doesn't.

Yes, but it doesn't need to be on his body.

If I was dating someone, I wouldn't feel insecure that they had an ex-partner or an ex-wife or

an ex-girlfriend.

I would feel insecure if they had their name still tattooed on their body.

That is a different thing because your body is now part of it is out of respect.

And I had a really interesting experience when I interviewed a woman called Emily Hall

for next week's No Filter, actually.

And it's for a cover story we're doing also called the Young Widows of Instagram.

And it's about these young women who lost their partners much earlier in life than you

would ever expect a woman to become a widow.

And they certainly didn't expect to.

And my original idea for the cover story was to photograph Emily holding a photo, a wedding

photo of her and her late husband.

And so I pitched that.

She said no.

I was a bit like annoyed.

I'm like, oh, that's annoying.

And then when I interviewed her, we spoke about it and I realized, oh my God, of course,

she's remarried.

And that is really disrespectful to her new husband.

It is.

Like not that he exists, not that they were married, but to continue centering someone

from your past when you are with someone else or would like to be with someone else.

I think isn't sensitive.

I agree with that, but I don't think that a tattoo that you got when things were different

and you were in love with them is centering them.

I think that's just, that's like a mark from your life.

I don't think having pictures of them on your Instagram is centering them.

Are we supposed to pretend that we're all blank pages?

Like literally, like nothing existed before you, darling.

No hand touched me.

You clearly have no tattoos.

I totally get that it might be a triggering reminder and you'd be like, oh, mate, get

rid of Olivia, would you?

Like every time I go down there.

She's looking at me.

I don't like it.

Fine.

But I don't think that just carte blanche, it's the respectful thing to do to pretend

you've never had an ex before.

I agree.

I agree.

Shouldn't the moral of the story be don't tattoo someone's name on you?

But I think it's bigger than that.

I think the Instagram thing's the same.

And he's got lots and lots of tattoos.

It's like Pete Davidson, you're going to have a million tattoos.

You're going to tattoo your current partner on you and you're going to regret it later.

Maybe.

But with the Instagram thing, I love when people keep photos of ex partners on their

Instagram because it is a phase of your life where you probably did a whole lot of fun,

exciting things.

You probably traveled together.

You went to nice restaurants.

You might have looked really hot and worn really nice outfits.

I just don't want to remove that.

I just don't think that a grown up human has to pretend that there was no one before

their partner.

This is what I don't understand.

They're not pretending.

So think of your body and your Instagram account as your home.

Would you still have framed photos of you and your ex-boyfriend, you and your ex-boyfriend?

Would you?

But it's not your house now.

That's different.

It's not holy.

It is a reflection of you.

This is what social media is.

Your Instagram is a reflection of you.

It's not an autobiography.

So you would think it was a sign of disrespect to you if your partner had not removed all

traces of any previous partner from their lives.

You're extrapolating and verbaling me.

That's not what I said.

Not from their lives.

I'm not saying go and burn photos and burn photo albums.

I'm not saying that.

I'm saying on Instagram and on your body, that is not what you want in your shop window.

And that's what those things are.

Instagram doesn't bother me at all.

I think you are who you are.

Instagram is not a historical document.

It is a reflection of your brand.

For some people it is.

I like having really old photos that I have not edited or removed.

And one day I'll look back and think, oh, remember that?

Sometimes women contact us who've written stories about times in their life when they've

had a breakup or whatever and they've come back to us years later and said, can you please

take that down?

Because I'm with someone, that was a snapshot of my life at that time.

But that's not who I am anymore.

There's often other circumstances to that.

That relationship wasn't what I thought it was.

There was this, there was that.

But I think that in general, just assuming that we all have to carry on as if there was

an Olivia, like if I'm Harry Styles, the entire world knows there was an Olivia.

They know that they ruined a multi-million dollar movie and that Jason Sadoocas can't

eat salad dressing anymore because of her.

I think you're both insane.

And can we also acknowledge that in those photos, which we don't look at paparazzi

photos except when it's Harry Styles.

I think you're both speaking as women who are in really, really long-term relationships.

Yes.

And who are with your people.

That's how you're talking.

I think you can accept another point of view to your own.

Can't you, Mia Friedman?

You're not accepting the reason that some people would find it weird.

I'm accepting it, but I'm saying that I don't think that that necessarily should

just be the standard.

Like we all just have to pretend that no one has a past.

There are things that in every relationship, you'll negotiate things in your own way.

And for me, and it might be because I've been in a very long-term relationship.

Neither of you have recent exes.

I have a million exes, not recent.

No, they're not recent, but I don't feel the need to pretend that I don't.

Do you know what I mean?

Like I don't feel the need to pretend that they don't exist, that they're not on Facebook,

that they're not in the world, that they weren't part of my life.

Like I reject the narrative.

What if you had their names tattooed on your body?

Would you leave them there?

I reject the narrative that it devalues your current relationship to even think about

an ex-partner every now and again.

It's bullshit.

Would you have their names tattooed on you?

I'm not a tattooed person.

My favorite thing about...

Mother Mia, out loud!

It feels like a movie.

I have a recommendation.

Get a tattoo.

I'm going to get another tattoo, actually.

I've got a tattoo that's embarrassing and that says who I was a long time ago.

It's my trap stamp that I got when I'm 30.

And it's your body.

Yeah, but it doesn't have the name of the person I was dating when I got it.

It's a historical document.

It is a historical document, but it doesn't have someone's name on it.

My recommendation is for a snack, perhaps a meal.

I go through phases, long, long, long phases of eating the same thing every day.

Like Jennifer Aniston.

Yeah.

To me, it's one decision less that I have to make in a day.

So, as everyone who worked at Mother Mia and is in my life knows,

peanut butter on toast is just been my thing.

I have peanut butter on toast every day for lunch.

Probably need to find some protein.

Oh, protein.

There's protein in peanut butter.

I should use almond butter.

I know.

I'm some vegetable star.

I could.

I have vegetables in the morning and I have vegetables in the morning.

That's true.

You have your greens in the morning.

I do.

I'm not a food shamer.

I promise.

Jesus.

Peanut butter on toast with cut up banana and maybe a drizzle of honey.

Delicious.

Reminds me of a childhood snack.

And the banana has to be just a little bit cold.

Yes.

Just a little bit chilled.

I didn't think of that.

Yeah.

I don't know how the banana gets chilled, but it just is.

And the honey is just a slight drizzle.

Yeah.

And I'm one of those people that put butter before my peanut butter.

That's what I do.

No.

See, I don't do butter and peanut butter.

Peanut butter is butter.

That's in the name.

Yeah.

It's like putting clothes on without undies.

I don't like bananas.

I'm a non-banana person as well.

Love bananas.

So I can't take your recommendation, but thank you very much.

Get a tattoo of a banana, Holly.

Stop trying to hide your past.

Holly should get a Brent tattoo on her face.

It'd be very Holly.

That would be so good.

Very Holly, just on her cheek.

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

on yesterday's subscriber episode,

we unpack the new insult being leveled at none other than Ariana Grande.

Apparently she is not a girl's girl.

But what does a girl's girl mean?

Ouch.

And is not being one actually a bad thing?

Yes.

Link in our show notes.

You can listen right now.

I've just realized that on the podcast, I just said,

I have a million exes.

I have a million.

I have one million exes.

So are you slat-shaming yourself now?

A little bit of an exaggeration.

Matilda will be like, Jesus Christ.

She's like, are you a posthumous, so popular?

That's not quite true.

Anyway, thank you for listening to Australia's number one news and pop culture show.

This episode was produced by Susanna Makin,

the executive producer is Tulissa Bazaar,

and there's been audio production from Leah Porges.

And we'll see you tomorrow.

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.