Mamamia Out Loud: Your Boss Wants To Know Less About Your Breakup

Mamamia Podcasts Mamamia Podcasts 10/27/23 - Episode Page - 38m - PDF Transcript

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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 Friday, the 27th of October.

I'm Holly Wainwright.

I'm Mia Friedman.

And I'm Claire Stevens.

And on the show today, how many days off should you get for a breakup?

The Italian Prime Minister and heartbreak leave.

Plus, the celebrity having to defend her baby from internet trolls

who thinks she needs to know exactly why he's not very cute.

And we wrap up our best and worst of the week,

which include a petition about formal dates, Gwyneth and donuts.

But first, Claire Stevens.

In case you missed it, former Federal Liberal Party staffer Bruce Lohman

has been revealed as the man facing rape charges in Queensland

after a failed legal battle to keep his name suppressed.

Lohman remains on bail facing two counts of raping a woman at Toowoomba,

west of Brisbane, in October 2021, which he has denied.

Lawyers for the 28-year-old had mounted a weeks-long legal effort

to maintain his anonymity after Queensland changed its laws this month

to no longer ban the publication of the names of people charged with certain sex offences

unless they face trial.

Now, there are certain things the media can't weigh in on or comment on right now,

and you probably know this man's name and face.

And if you're wondering why some parts of the media aren't saying what you're probably thinking,

it's because it could prejudice the trial.

And so you might hear us talk about this down the track,

but likely not before Lohman faces court in Toowoomba to face these charges.

Well, I think we should break up.

What?

On Monday, we told you about how the Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Maloney,

has separated from her partner of 10 years because he was exposed as being,

and there is an official term for this, an insufferable creep.

Andrea Gian Bruno was caught on film making suggestive harassing marks to women.

Now, obviously Maloney has a pretty big job.

She's running a country and everything.

And when this all happened, she was freshly back from a diplomatic visit to Israel,

so she's dealing with some big stuff.

But after going on television to announce the split,

she took one day off work,

sending her apologies to the conference she was meant to be attending by saying,

I'm sorry not to be with you in person, but I too am human.

This sparked an interesting piece I read in the Guardian UK about heartbreak leave

and whether it's a thing or should be a thing.

In Germany, for example, you can take time off for Liebeskulma,

which means literally love sickness.

And paid heartbreak leave is also offered by companies in Japan and in the Philippines

and reportedly some tech companies in Australia like Finder grant something called Life Leave

for moments like heartbreak.

All of this leads me to a question.

What happened to lying to your boss?

Surely the immediate pointy end of heartbreak can be covered by a convenient 24 hour stomach flu,

a positive COVID test or maybe a dehydration headache.

I don't know.

It doesn't mean you have to tell everybody what's happened to you

or slice up bits of your leave into all these little categories.

Claire Stevens, do we need heartbreak leave or do we just need to be better liars?

I have to say, I absolutely love Maloney's line about I too am human.

And I think there is something to be said about that concept of something like Life Leave.

And I'm not sure how it works if, for example, it's taken out of your annual leave,

if it's additional leave on top of everything else,

because I have originally been whenever I hear about, you know, period leave or anything like that,

I think that's what sick leave is for.

But the advantage of somebody like the Italian Prime Minister standing up and saying,

I'm not okay and I needed a day off for this,

is that it grants other people that grace to be able to be honest about when you're not okay

and the life circumstances when you're not okay and something like heartbreak.

Does everybody need to know why you're not okay?

Well, like, can't it just be that you're like, I'm really not well, I'm not coming in.

I'm sorry.

And then a few weeks later, your boss puts two and two together that, oh, they just broke up with them.

Like, that's okay.

Well, I think the mental load of lying as somebody, we've talked about it on the show before.

I hate lying.

I'm really bad at it.

I always stuff it up.

I would do something like, oh, guys, I'm sick and then make it quite clear that I wasn't actually sick.

I think that there's something to be said for being honest.

And I think in 2023, where our relationships with our workplaces are different,

I do think that being honest and being able to say, I'm taking a day off because this really shitty thing has happened,

whether it actually gets counted as annual leave or sick leave or whatever, putting that aside,

I think we bring more of ourselves to work.

And therefore we should be more honest about when we can't be at work.

Oh, conflicted.

So I always bring the role of the big bad employer to these kinds of conversations.

And a lot about that is also employers.

So it's not just me that I'm speaking to share that perspective.

This is going to sound awful.

But I think sometimes your boss would like to know less about you, not more.

Yes.

Like, is that really insensitive?

No.

Because, you know, like with period leave, does your boss need to know I've just got some really big clots today?

Or could you just be sick?

I'm just not well.

And let's leave it at that.

So you don't have to think about the clots.

We don't have to think about flow.

I don't have to tell you that I'm taking heartbreak leave so that you then have to inquire if I'm okay and then check in with me tomorrow.

When we break all these leaves into different things and we were talking about menopause leave last week, I can't remember because I'm foggy.

But all of these things make a relationship that should probably have some boundaries in it, feel very porous from both perspectives.

You know, people who are managing people, most of us who are managers or employers don't go into our lives or our jobs wanting to manage people.

That's something that tends to come as you get more senior and get more responsibility.

But it's not something that anyone, most people relish.

You know, most people just do it as part of their job.

So having to have some pretty full-on conversations about people's mental health, about their flow, about their miscarriages, about their breakups,

that's above the pay grade, above the skill set of 99% of managers.

And just to clarify, I'm not suggesting that everyone just stay at home, switch off their phone and not tell anyone when they're going through stuff, whatever it is.

But maybe just your boss or your head of HR, your manager is not necessarily the right person to do that with?

I have felt before that, you know, something's been revealed to me or somebody is taking leave for something that I then don't know how to respond

and I don't know what my role is in fixing that.

However, for some reason, there's something about heartbreak that I've always wanted to know in a team

because it gives you a little bit of context for how you speak to that person for if you ask how their partner's doing.

It's one of those life experiences that I like to have context for.

However, I would just like to put on the table, I think you'll feel better if you come to work.

Oh, I think that depends.

It depends what stage of the heartbreak you're at because the thing about this is like, you know, we can be a flippant about heartbreak,

but it can obviously be incredibly devastating.

Again, I'm not an employer, but I've been a boss for a lot of years and I don't really want my team to be like,

crying, miserable and crying in the toilet.

It's like, I don't mean that from a selfish perspective.

I mean, it's sometimes I think these things are a bit provocative because I agree that if you have a really good personal relationship with your boss

and they would be interested to know that you just broke up, then that's a different thing.

But if there's a formal framework, there's a lot of room for judgment to call up and say,

I'm not coming in today because my boyfriend or girlfriend dumped me yesterday that leaves all this gap for that boss to think that you're this or that

or how long were they together only a few months or whatever, you know, like lots of room for judgment.

If you just call up and say you ate some bad prawns.

Oh my God.

No problem.

I don't need to know.

And then later on, I find out that's around the time you broke up with Betty.

I'll be like, oh, that makes sense.

Maybe the prawns weren't that bad, but we all did not have to have that conversation.

It's true.

My other feeling about it is that people usually when they're talking about these types of leave, it is in addition to that's why they're saying we want them as extra.

Menopause leave, menstrual leave, heartbreak leave, all of these things.

And to me, it then also becomes a little bit like trigger warnings, right?

So the intention is good.

We want to help people out, but then it's like, well, how big does the clot have to be?

And also, what if your heartbreak is because you got ghosted versus someone else's heartbreak?

Which is a divorce.

Because they just find their father of their seven children has been cheating and has another family.

Like who gets to measure your heart?

Or maybe your heartbroken because your pet died.

I know that's then bereavement leave.

But then it was your grandmother, but you hadn't seen her for 20 years and she lives in the UK, but also you're bereaved.

It's very difficult to quantify and compare who deserves a type of leave.

And that's again, something that's really awkward.

And also, employers just can't afford to endlessly pay people to not be at work.

Like, we just can't.

The interesting thing about this story is that the Italian Prime Minister hasn't necessarily come out and been like heartbreak leave for all.

It's simply that she took one day off work and acknowledged I2M human and she is in the very rare position where everyone knows.

It's not that she happens to have a cold this week.

It is that her partner has publicly come out as a creep and it's all fallen apart.

So there was that article in The Guardian, but I don't know if anybody is kind of actively campaigning for this kind of leave.

It's more, I think, it's an interesting conversation about whether we be honest about the things that make us struggle to cope.

As someone who's quite private, there's nothing worse than going to work and everybody going, are you okay?

Are you okay?

If there's one thing that guarantees that you're going to be crying in the toilets, it's that.

So I'm just for a bit more lying.

Mom and me are out loud.

In the latest edition of People Are Strange and Unkind,

Paris Hilton posted a photo of herself with her nine-month-old son, Phoenix Baron Hilton,

and there were a lot of comments about what an unusually sized head he had.

Some people were even chiming in with unsolicited medical advice expressing concern for the size of the baby's head.

Others were just simply making fun of the infant child.

Generally, it's all a little bit confounding, but not entirely surprising in 2023.

Pedestrian had a great response to this saying,

if you're taking the time out of your day to tell a celebrity a detailed prognosis of a health condition for a child you've never met before,

I would seriously think about logging off and touching some grass.

And now she has responded.

She's posted the following statement,

And yes, of course, he has been to a doctor.

He just has a large brain.

Living life in the spotlight, comments are inevitable,

but targeting my child or anyone else for that matter is unacceptable.

This hurts my heart more deeply than words can describe.

I've worked hard to cultivate an environment that is all about love, respect and acceptance,

and I expect the same in return.

I've dreamt of being a mum for as long as I can remember every day with him as a reminder of what truly matters.

It's hard to fathom that there are people in the world who would target such innocence.

I hope that people can treat one another with more kindness and empathy.

Claire, you found out that you're having quite a big baby.

Does this make you think twice about posting pictures of her when she arrives in case people give you unsolicited medical advice or are just mean?

So I'm having a giant test.

I found out this week and had the 3D scan where you see your...

I never had one of those, what's that like?

So I thought that my reaction, because everybody says, you always think your baby's beautiful.

I saw the picture and I went, oh honey, we're not a pretty girl.

So you're trolling your own baby before she's even born?

It's okay, that might not be our thing.

Oh my gosh.

We'll see how she turns out.

This poor child.

So I think she'll be a funny looking little girl and that's okay.

But it doesn't make me think twice about posting because I've seen with Jesse's experience of posting Luna.

One, when you've got a little baby like that, they're just your life.

They just are.

And so if you are trying not to share anything about them, then you're not able to kind of authentically represent where you're at.

I don't think.

I think it's like an effort to not share.

And should you turn comments off so you don't, because what has shocked me is, and this is something that Holly and I never had to live through when we had little babies, right?

The unsolicited advice.

So I wrote in my newsletter this week about how I was looking after Luna.

She was crying.

Sally Hepworth came over between us.

We have six children.

We were trying to, you know, calm her.

She was cracking it.

We had a bottle.

We had white noise in the phone.

We were jiggling.

And my daughter took a bit of a video of us because it just looked so silly and funny.

And I posted it and then the comments about why are you holding a phone so close to the baby's face?

Why are you using white noise?

Babies need, you know, to have quiet time.

Why are you jiggling her while you're also feeding her?

And because it's not my baby, I didn't feel shamed by it.

I just made me laugh because I've got a level of confidence that I know that I can look after an infant and I have raised three of them quite successfully.

And Sally felt the same way.

But had we been new mothers and all that advice come in and all that scolding, which some people call concern trolling where people are actually just being mean, but they're catching it in a way of concern that they worry.

And I actually do think that a lot of the stuff is genuine, but it's very performative.

People getting status by saying, I'm worried about his head.

What's wrong with that child?

Why are you doing this?

Didn't you know?

What about sun protection?

I imagine it could potentially make you feel very insecure.

Hold to you, write mean things on random people's pictures of their babies.

Oh my God, you busted me.

That is what I spend my Saturday nights doing.

You've got a burner phone for that exact purpose.

The thing I thought when I saw this from Paris Hilton, obviously I was not hanging out for a picture of Paris Hilton's baby.

So I was like, oh, and then I went and looked, baby's gorgeous, baby's super cute.

I cannot believe that people would say all that stuff about that baby.

However, it reminded me of a phase in your life where everybody is constantly showing you pictures of their babies and you've got to find things to say about them, right?

I'm kind of going through that phase at the minute because lots of my young friends from work are having babies.

And it reminded me that years ago, we ran a story on Mamma Mia that was actually inspired by a story at the cut about a test that you can perform to A, tell if your baby is ugly.

And when I say ugly, please don't at me.

You know, no babies are ugly, et cetera, but you know, not the cute little baby that would get the Bond's baby search contract, for example.

Not the conventionally adorable baby is this little test, right?

And this writer wrote that what you should do to see if you can trust your friends to give you a good read on whether or not your baby is cute is when your baby is new and you haven't yet posted them everywhere,

you should send a friend a random picture of a baby that you've got from the internet that does look a bit weird.

And then you should see what they say.

And she said, if they say, wow, look at his expression.

What a smart looking baby.

He looks like he's really thinking and taking the world in or something like that, right?

Congratulations, she wrote.

This means you can trust your friend who cannot bring herself to lie about an ugly baby, but is kind enough that they're not going to tell you your baby's ugly.

But if your friends, you send them the picture and your friend says, oh my God, that's the most gorgeous baby I've ever seen.

What a beautiful little button.

Then you know that they're lying and then you cannot trust them with anything.

And I loved this because in lots of situations, you always want to find something nice to say to somebody, right?

But you also know that they've got a bullshit detector.

We all think our babies are beautiful when they're born, generally speaking.

And often you look back and go, oh, they were a bit funny looking or oh, they did look like every other baby that's ever been born ever.

But to me, they looked incredible because I love them.

But I think we need like a list of acceptable compliments that you can give a baby that don't necessarily have anything to do with how cute they might be.

And there's been all sorts of research about how it's a little bit problematic that we make comments about a person's appearance from the moment that they're born.

And we often do it more for little girls.

It can't really talk about their personality.

Oh, yes, you can.

When they're newborn.

Very alert, how alert.

Yeah, that's true.

Very alert.

So punctual.

Yeah.

Came on time.

Really generous.

The Paris Hilton phenomenon of what people have commented on this, people thinking that the baby has a medical condition.

They're the people I'm most interested in, the people who are like, just letting you know Paris Hilton person who has more resources than almost anybody else in the entire world.

I think there's something medically wrong with your baby that you don't know about.

And that is what I have seen online for so long.

I've seen it with Luna.

There's always comments about how she's being held, where she is, how she's sitting in her bloody rocker.

But I've seen it with like influences children, the things people write about like milestones, or they seem a bit like developmentally delayed.

And they say these things about people's children, framing it as concern.

And it's so ironic because you think, oh, you're so concerned for this baby.

But when this baby grows up into a mother, you're going to be awful to that mother who obviously every mum has a million anxieties about their child.

Let's give people the benefit of the doubt.

Women like to be helpful, right?

And the only thing we like more than being helpful is other people watching us be helpful publicly, performing our helpfulness.

We do think we are trying to do a nice thing.

But we also are trying to get status for ourselves by being perceived in the tribe, which is what social media is.

It's just a very unruly, stupidly large tribe as being the person who has the knowledge, who knows things that can help keep the tribe safe and thriving.

And so that's where it comes from.

I don't mean the people that are like, what an ugly kid, because that's just cruelty.

That's a different thing.

Every so often, you'll see a thing about someone or say, oh, I was on reality TV or I was a newsreader and someone wrote in and said, hey, you should get that freckle checked.

I'm a dermatologist.

And then I found out that it was, you know, stage two melanoma and I got it just in time or something.

And so I think everybody, what they hope will be like, thank you so much, Jellyfish186.

I read your comment and I called my pediatrician and we've discovered he has encephalitis.

And now we're in ICU and we got it just in time because of your comment.

But people, that's not what's going to happen.

That thing about like the mole and somebody spotting, that has happened, I reckon, in history two times out of one billion trillion concern trolling comments.

What it is is incredibly patronizing and dismissive of the mother, because it assumes you don't have your baby's best interests at heart.

You have no instincts around whether or not your baby is okay and you can't be trusted to make decisions.

One, everybody knows that babies have big heads.

And also bad angles.

Babies have bad angles.

Bad angles, big heads.

The people saying that Paris Hilton, I think your baby has a brain disease, they don't know anything about babies because the way babies are is that their head is disproportionately large.

That's why childbirth is so difficult.

And so I think what it is, is it's nothing to do with the baby.

It's to do with thinking women are idiots and aren't responsible and have no idea what's best for their baby.

I am so finely attuned to mom shaming that I won't say anything if the baby's about to run off a cliff.

Like literally the other day, I was in a public place where this toddler was playing with a pair of scissors.

Like literally they were.

And I was watching the toddler play with a pair of scissors and their parent was nearby.

And I was like, any minute now, he's going to turn around that dad and he's going to see that his toddler's playing with a pair of scissors.

I was like, how long do I go before I go over there and take the scissors off the toddler?

But I don't want to do that because I know how annoying it is when strangers intervene in your life and go like, oh, you shouldn't be letting that baby play with the scissors.

But then I was like, oh my God, Holly, the toddler should not be putting those scissors up their nose.

Go over there and take the fucking scissors off the baby.

That's not so tricky is that there's a life stage where you actually genuinely become weirdly attuned to what a baby shouldn't be doing.

It sounds so bad, but I do see images every now and then and think, oh, that's not how you meant to hold them.

Oh, they look like they're in direct sun.

But shut the fuck up because they have parents who overwhelmingly have their best interests at heart.

So you don't need to worry.

That's it.

If you want to make mum Mia out loud part of your routine five days a week, we release segments on Tuesdays and Thursdays just for mum Mia subscribers.

To get full access, follow the link in the show notes and a big thank you to all our current subscribers.

It's Friday, which means it's time for us to wrap up our best and worst of the week, our highlights and lowlights.

Mia, you're first up.

My worst of the week.

It's been another horrific week in the news cycle.

It's just been unrelenting.

There was news yesterday that a 21 year old water polo coach called Lily James, a young woman in the beginning of her life, was apparently murdered.

Another horrific story.

There have just been a number of these, you know, I think it's between one and three women are killed every week by an intimate partner.

And yesterday, I just may have shouted in my house, why do men think they can kill women?

Why?

What makes?

And I know not all men, but a lot of men.

A lot more men think that they can kill women than women think that they can kill men.

Anyway, that's my worst of the week.

My best is some young women who are kicking ass.

They go to an all girls Catholic school called St Ursula's in Sydney.

High school formals coming up there in their last year of school.

This one girl wanted to take her female partner, her girlfriend.

They were very excited.

They'd bought new outfits to wear and everything, even bought the tickets.

And then when they wrote in the names, you had to write the names that school said, no, no, you can only take someone of the opposite sex.

Several parents contacted the school.

The school emphasized that the rule is it doesn't have to be a romantic partner, but it has to be a friend or a partner of the opposite sex.

So these girls started a petition.

There are 5000 people who signed the petition.

I think the petition is now closed.

And the premier of New South Wales, Chris Minces, come out and said that he believes that all schools should allow students to take whomever they want to their formal.

I love this.

Never happened when I was at school.

And I can only imagine how many girls and boys were closeted or even not closeted, but probably closeted and not able to take the person that they wanted to take.

It sucks that religious schools are allowed to discriminate on the basis of sexuality legally due to religious grounds.

And I know what Holly's going to say.

I'm not going to say it.

I'm not going to say it.

I'll say it.

Holly will say, we've had this conversation many times, that if you sign up to send your child to a religious school that espouses these values, then you shouldn't be surprised when they enforce them.

But I like that there's pushback.

I hope these girls can take who they want.

Progress happens from challenging the system from within because I went to a Catholic school close to 15 years ago and you were not allowed to bring a same sex partner.

All the Catholic schools around me, nobody was allowed to bring a same sex partner.

And I'm so glad that in 2023, the students are saying, no, that's ridiculous.

Which it is because a lot of people just want to bring their friend.

My worst is Gwyneth related.

One of my favorite love, love, hate, hate, love, love celebrities, Gwyneth Paltrow is in Sydney today and I'm not.

And that makes me sad.

I have mad FOMO.

And while I was thinking about this today, so many out louders have messaged me to say, are you going to see Gwyneth talk tonight?

Me or interviewed Jackie O this week.

Jackie O is part of an organization that's brought Gwyneth out to do a big show tonight, basically.

And loads of women I know are going and they're all messaging me and going, are you coming?

Are you bringing your vagina candle?

And the truth is I'm not coming.

And the reason I'm not coming is because I live two hours away and my partner Brent is away, right?

So I've got to be here with the children.

And it made me realize that, you know, I talk a lot about how much I love my regional move and I do.

But one of the sort of sides of it that you've got to make peace with is that you're going to miss things.

You just start like if I was in Sydney and Brent was away, it would be so easy for me to either leave the kids for a few hours or get a friend to look after them or whatever.

The complication of distance makes that so much harder, you know, like it's not easy for someone to just pop over all of that kind of stuff.

So my worst is, yes, that I'm missing Gwyneth, but also that I'm dealing with the mad FOMO, which is my fault.

My best, also celebrity related, I've been listening to the Brittany book.

I know we've been talking about it on the show. We talked about it on Wednesday.

We did a subscriber sec yesterday.

I've been listening to it.

It's read by Michelle Williams, the Oscar-winning actress.

It is a joy as an audio book because the intro is read by Britney Spears, right?

And then Michelle takes over and there could not be a greater contrast in how this book plays out in your head and how engaged you are in the story than the difference between those two voices.

I can't tell you why.

Well, Brittany is Brittany, right?

She sounds a little bit Brittany for all the reasons that we spoke about on the sub show yesterday, a little bit scattered, a little bit messy and also professional actors are really good at reading things.

And so Michelle Williams lends all this like gentle credibility.

She's a beautiful storyteller.

It's like hearing this sort of story about this small town girl made good that's almost like a fairy tale.

It's wild.

Anyway, so I really recommend it as an audio book, but also I have to make a public apology.

I had an argument with a colleague in a news meeting on Wednesday who was saying we should write a story about how we've got to cancel just in Timberlake.

There's a little bit tongue in cheek there.

And I was like, no, we don't.

You know, he was young when he was with Brittany and we all make mistakes.

And I know that the narrative is that she cheated on him and then he put her in the Crimean River video and I'll never forget it.

I defended him.

Now I've read that bit of the book.

We should cancel just in Timberlake.

He was a dirty dog.

He is by her account, obviously.

He cheated on Brittany and yes, she cheated on him and she admits that.

But then he built his entire solo career on the premise of being this wronged dude.

And Brittany forevermore was marked as what they termed in those days a bit of a hoe.

Anyway, so my best is going on this journey with Brittany and Michelle Williams.

There's a lot of commentary about Justin Timberlake at the moment and on TikTok people are sharing cringe videos of him dancing.

And I feel like that's the best revenge really.

No, as he's gotten a little bit older, it's a little bit sadder.

But I think it's the best revenge to just make fun of Justin just a little bit.

This week in a very strange turn of events, I have two bests.

And it's a bit of an apology to the out loudest being an eel in the last few months because I often do a lot of complaining.

So I'm going to do two bests.

My first best is that last weekend I went and did a birth class.

But the birth class was with a midwife who's very well known in Sydney.

She is absolutely fantastic.

You know, those people who are a relative of some kind, she's my nann's sister's kid's kid.

Anyway, she looked after me when I was a baby.

And she looked after myself and Jesse and our two brothers and mum would just let her take us to the park.

Yeah, like she would just turn up and she loved baby.

All four of you.

Yes.

She worked out the other day, she was 10.

And she would come over.

You were going to say like she's 25.

She was 10.

No.

And she was given four babies.

Yeah.

It sounds like we're parents, shame on you and Stevens.

And mum was like...

Which we a little bit are.

Mum was like see you never and she'd take us to the park.

I love that.

And now she is this incredible midwife who does all these birth education classes.

Absolutely loves babies, teaches.

It's like birth, but then also goes into parenting and feeding and all of that.

She's like, I wonder if my kind of obsession with babies started with looking after you guys.

It just felt like a full circle moment that I was there.

We took a photo for the family.

I'm there incredibly pregnant.

She was teaching me how to give birth.

Oh, that's beautiful.

And it's just a weird life.

Do you remember her?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I remember her from being little very distinctly because she was lots of fun.

She was lots of fun.

And clearly very responsible.

Yeah.

She wouldn't have let you play with scissors.

No, I don't think so.

I don't think so.

My second best is that this week I put a call out on Instagram.

I was like, oh, I kind of like thinking about going on a baby moon,

thinking about going somewhere near Sydney.

Like, does anybody have any ideas?

And people had the best ideas of where to go that's actually friendly.

Because I was like, I don't want to go somewhere where I'll feel like I should be doing activities.

So true.

Because then I'll feel guilty about it.

So I need to go somewhere where I can solely float.

Anyway, so many suggestions.

But my favorite thing was several out louders sent me recommendations of where to go.

And then a screenshot of a map to show where the closest donut king was.

Or like, and by the way, there's a really good bakery nearby for you to get your donuts.

Claire, they see you.

I'm like, that's really kind because that is something that I would be doing is looking.

Well, I'm not going to remote because where am I going to get my daily donut?

I've just had so many messages from out louders about, you know, quite interested in my donut obsession.

You know, does this extend to bagels?

No, no, no.

No, that's savory.

I need my donuts.

Do you want custard filled donuts?

No, no, no, no.

I do not.

And so I just love the out louders.

I love that they understand and see my donut obsession.

Claire, they love you so much.

Your last show before you go on mat leave and pass the baton back to Jesse is next Wednesday.

Yes.

We'll say more nice things about you next week.

Please don't.

I have a recommendation before we go and it's for jeans.

Who doesn't want a pair of jeans?

Now I'm on an endless quest for jeans, a jeans journey you might call it.

And this week I wore a pair that I wanted to recommend.

Lots of people asked me about them.

They are from Zara.

They are the crop flair.

They are particularly good if you are a little bit short.

You walked into the studio and both me and Holly were like, tell us about the jeans.

They're really nice.

You know how Mia is?

Well, she's more fashion forward than us.

Let's be honest, right?

Just live it.

The day that she wore these jeans, I commented on Mia's outfit because I didn't understand it.

And what I realized quickly is the shape of jean that Mia was wearing was too cool for me,

but I will probably be wearing it next year.

No.

And it was these.

It's actually a throwback.

It's a perennial really.

It's not a new style of jean.

I actually have some of these jeans that I've bought in the past like expensive.

These are $69.99.

They come in black, white, cream, different shades of denim and the kind of light wash denim that I was wearing.

They've got a tiny little kick.

They're not like a boot cut, but you know how ballet flats and flat shoes are really big,

whether they're slides, you know, it's a bit of a back to the future moment for shoes back to the 90s.

And it's things like all of those kinds of flats.

If you wear baggy jeans, like the recent trend for like wide legged jeans, baggy jeans,

they all look really wrong with most of those flat shoes, particularly ballet flats.

But the cropped flair, that's exactly the cut that you need.

Now these come in, I think mid-rise and high-rise.

I love a high-rise jean.

Holds in le tummy.

Were yours high-rise?

I can't remember.

I can't remember if they were mid or high-rise, but they're not low-rise.

Either way, they give you tummy coverage.

So we'll put a link in the show notes and we'll include a link in our newsletter this week.

If you're looking for something else to listen to in yesterday's Subscribe episode,

we called an emergency meeting about Britney Spears' new memoir.

If you want to know what we really thought about it and we are very honest about what we think about,

we dive into the ethics of it even existing.

We get very, very honest.

Shots are fired.

So yes, if you want to know what we really thought about it, check it out.

A link to that episode will be in the show notes.

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

The executive producer of this episode is Tulissa Bazaaz,

the assistant producer is Tali Blackman with Audio Production by Leah Porges,

and we'll see you next week.

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.

Thank you.

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.

Subscribe to Mamamia

After experiencing heartbreak, is it better to tell the boss or cry privately in the bathroom? We discuss ‘heartbreak leave’ and why Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s day off has sparked debate.

Plus, leave the babies alone! Paris Hilton is not happy about the trolls commenting on her baby son, which has us asking, what else should we avoid saying about babies?

And, we wrap up our best and worst of the week which include a petition about formal dates, Gwyneth Paltrow and donuts…again.

The End Bits: 




Listen to our latest subscriber episode: An Emergency Meeting About Britney Spears' Memoir
Read more: The test to see what your friends really think of your baby.

RECOMMENDATION: Mia wants you to buy Zara's Flare Cropped Jeans

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CREDITS:

Hosts: Holly Wainwright, Mia Freedman & Clare Stephens 

Executive Producer: Talissa Bazaz

Assistant Production: Tahli Blackman

Audio Producer: Leah Porges

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