Hello and welcome back to To Be a Boy with Me, Jolie Braley.
And me, Elliot Ray. So Elliot, last week we had a 15
year old secondary school student who is writing a book on
red pill masculinity called Josh Sargent on the show and wow, he
blew my mind. I was so impressed with the way
that he articulates himself. But I think he just, for me, he
added a whole new dimension to this conversation we've been
having about boys and their exposures to the online world
and and the damage it is doing to them.
What did you take from the episode I?
Thought he was incredible. I've had so many messages and so
many people have been questioning their abilities,
their self esteem, their life choices.
We didn't mean to make you feel uncomfortable about your about
yourself. OK, You're, I'm sure you're
doing very well in life, but Josh was so eloquent and so
knowledgeable as a 15 year old. I think a lot of people were
questioning what they were doing at 15 years old.
Yeah. One thing that he said that I
think I've been thinking about quite a lot, especially with my
9 year old. Josh was talking about the fact
that to stop your child having a phone, OK, you may be then
stopping them accessing this information, but what you're
doing then is isolating them from their social groups and
their their friends at school. And looking at the research, 44%
of children have a phone at age 9 and 91% by the age of 11.
So really when you go to secondary school, the majority
of kids have a phone, which means they're going to see this
content whether we like it or not.
And as Josh was saying, we can't stop them seeing the content,
but we can and we should be having really open conversations
so we're understanding where they're at and what they're
seeing and how they're feeling about it and help helping them
to process. He did seem quite keen on the
idea that we should regulate the content a bit more like we do
with TV, like we do with the radio.
The Ofcom should be involved. They should be looking at
misogynistic, racist content and ensuring that the social media
platforms are held responsible for that content and forced to
take it down, which is something we've heard a couple of times
previously. And it will be interesting when
we interviewed Peter Kyle, the Secretary of State for Business
and Technology, to ask him about what the government is planning
to do on this. But I have started to change by
thinking a little bit around technology in particular,
because I sort of also feel that we're being quite paternalistic
in saying to kids, you can't have phones.
I mean, I my phone is stuck to me almost constantly.
And we know that many adults are not very bounded with the way
they use technology. And to then say to their
children, well, you can't have a phone while probably staring at
their phone while saying it just feels like we maybe got the
dynamics a little bit wrong here.
And you and I attended South by Southwest this week and we did a
panel on the Superman myth, which we really enjoyed and is a
topic for another time. But we went to see a couple of
talks on some of these issues around boys and what's happening
in the online world. And I found a guy totally
forgotten his name, but a guy on one of the panels really
interesting. He talked about they'd done an
experiment where they had got a group of kids and taught them
critical thinking and they had shown them content on the
Internet and then discussed it with them afterwards.
So what did you take from this? Why do you think that?
Do you think this is accurate? Could this maybe not be
accurate? Could you think about it like
this? And they found that with the
kids that they taught critical thinking skills to over a period
of time, they had higher rates and mental health, high rates of
happiness. And they were much better at
looking at content on the Internet and to seeing it for
what it was, rather than immediately accepting it as just
fact. So maybe there's something here
around schools and the curriculum adapting so that we
are better at teaching kids critical thinking.
I think so and Movember and Beyond Equality, they have a
really good guide to talking to your children about the online
world. But I think some of the
principles that are talked about in that guide are applicable for
everyday life, not just the online world, but how do you
think about friendships? How do you think about
relationships? How do you think about school
life, home life, you know, growing up, whatever it is.
I was reflecting on the conversation with Josh just
about the amount of information that we all are consuming young
people, but all of us, but for especially for young people
where their brains haven't really developed until the kind
of mid these and all this information, whether it's good
or bad, but just the amount of things we are consuming is
ridiculous. I was having a look and there's
a study by the American Psychological Association, the
APA found that exposure to constant news, especially
negative news via social media leads to elevated stress levels,
particularly amongst teens and young young adults.
And a Pew Research Center report in 2020 found that 64% of
Americans and a similar proportion of young people in
the UK said they feel overwhelmed by the amount of
news and information available today.
I feel overwhelmed by the amount of news and information that I'm
taking in. And as you were talking about,
Jodie, about our own habits, I'm not great at all.
Like, I'm addicted to my phone. I can happily say I am addicted
to my phone. And it is.
It's really bad for my parenting, but it's really,
really bad for me as well because I have a good life.
Like I really have a good life. I have great family.
I enjoy my, my work, you know, I enjoy myself.
I feel very lucky and privileged and I'm happy.
But when I go online, some of that joy is taken away and I
recognize it. I know it.
But the pull of social media, the pull of the constant news,
the pull of emails coming in and opportunities and all these
things, 100% no. I'm addicted to it and it is one
of my things to work on in terms of I need to fix this because
it's not good for my parenting, it's not good for the the bond
with my children, but first and foremost, it's just not good for
my own mental health and how I feel about myself.
Josh knew what inflation is, and he's 15. 15 years old.
He was like, inflation's about 3%.
I was like, is it I'd, I mean, I, I, I'm still not even sure
what inflation is, if I'm honest.
He was quoting the news from like last week.
He was like, yeah, it's 3.5%, it's up 3.5, something like
that. Who knows?
But I couldn't believe it. I was like, you're 15 years old.
Yeah, exactly. And he knows what misogyny is.
I still can't even spell misogyny properly.
I still have to do spell check. And I've been working in that
field for 10 years. I was just so blown away.
But I'm, I am continuously blown away by how intelligent this
generation are. But I think I also want to say
to him, just be a kid while you can.
Literally exactly. Because when you're an adult,
shit gets real. When you've got a mortgage to
pay and you have to go to work every day and maybe you've got
children and then you have elderly parents and like shit
gets real really, really quickly.
And so I am just so happy that for the majority of my
childhood, I was able to be a child and I didn't worry too
much about the wider stuff that was going on.
Maybe when I became like 1718, then I started becoming more
aware of wider social issues and maybe the economy and some of
the bad things that can that can happen to you as you as you get
older. But at that age, I was literally
just thinking about girlfriends, music, football, that was it.
That's. What you should, I really think
that's what you should just be thinking about.
I, I almost found it really quite sad.
And he admitted that it does feel like a blockage in his
brain because he's only 15. He doesn't have the life
experience to translate this type of news, but yet he's
absorbing it every single day. And that stuff starts to back
up. And when it's just constant
negative news about financial crises, about conflicts across
the world, about inflation, about the fact that kids are not
going to be able to get on the housing ladder when they're
older, inevitably it's just going to make you feel really
bloody depressed it. Takes away your joy and
ultimately sometimes I think problems that we create them,
they're maybe not going to become real.
Like a lot of the things that I worry about don't actually
happen and we go through our day-to-day lives and we're all
good. And so sometimes just that
that's that overload of information can get yourself
into a spiral where you're overthinking a little bit too
much and it takes away the joy from today.
So. So we also, as well as South by
Southwest have seen a lot of you actually earlier over the last
two weeks. We were at the dad strike on
Wednesday, which was brilliant. It was in London, it was held by
the dad shift. It was to campaign and push the
government on paternity leave, which is the Western Europe and
asked for six weeks, potentially about 90% of salary, which is a
campaign that we've both been involved with for a very, very
long time. We both spoke at it and the turn
out was Gray. But also because I found it
really interesting the response to the dead strike.
Obviously running pregnant and screwed.
I organized the March of the Mummies and I organized the
March of the Mummies in 2017 when the turn out was about
there's about 350 people attended and then organized it
again in 2022 when 15,000 parents attended in 10 cities
across the UK. Now the first time we did March
the mummies, the response I have to say was quite lackluster.
There was very little. There was a bit of coverage in
the press. The government just completely
ignored us. The second time we did it, it
was much bigger. So there was coverage across all
of the press, but again, the government continued to ignore
us. Now, of course, it was called
March, the Moments, and it was predominantly women that were
marching and it was organized by women.
The Dad strike had about the same attendance that we did in
2017 and yet there has been a very different tone to this
response. The dad shift where contacted by
ministers and invited into Parliament before the strike to
have a conversation about paternity leave.
That never happened for us. They were invited on Loose
Women. They got absolutely loads of
coverage. I have to say, and I it's not
just me that has said this, It's been pointed out to me by many
of the women who've been also involved in this movement for a
long time. The IT felt very much like, oh,
the men are asking. Now that the men are asking, we
really should take this seriously.
And I am absolutely not saying that the men shouldn't ask.
And I'm not criticizing anybody. I am just saying it really does
demonstrate to me how important it is that we have men.
And I will point out that these are white men from a very
privileged position suddenly asking for something.
And suddenly the tone does seem to shift.
And I just one of their thing as well that I've noticed this week
was that Luke Charters, who is actually my MP, is going on
paternity leave. He's a very new MP.
He's 29 years old and he is taking 4 weeks paternity leave
and he has asked for what's known as locum cover to deal
with his constituents work. Estella Creasy also did this.
Wanted to take my turn to leave requested locum cover.
It was granted to her the first time around.
The second time round it was absolutely refused to her.
So she then was left with this choice between being a mum and
spending the quality time shoot with her baby or or looking
after her constituents. That was because she wasn't
granted the slogan cover with Luke Charters.
It was granted straight away and he will be taking four weeks
paternity leave. And I also read his article
recently about this in the Guardian which was titled I am a
Dad 1st and an MP second. And I thought no woman, no
female MP could ever say I am a mother 1st and MP second.
They will be absolutely lambasted.
The other women that took maternity leave over that
parliament was Siobhan Bailey and Theo Clark and they both
received so much abuse that they had to contact the place.
It was just incessant abuse from their constituents.
And Siobhan Bailey was even somebody posted a poo to her in
a box. They left a poo outside her
constituency office in a box. That's how bad it got.
Luke Charter says in this article that everybody has been
really supportive. He's had lots of people
congratulate him. And he said there was one person
who messaged and said something like, well, why are you not
doing your work as an MP? And I thought the tone is so
different. Yeah, no, I think I'm so glad
you raised this because I want to have frank, candid
conversations. I completely agree with you.
I think there's so many things to say.
First of all, I think it does highlight the need for male
allies and particularly white male privileged allies, because
when those people stand up and say something, unfortunately
they're more likely to be heard. And so I think through this,
what we've learned is that right now we live in a world that
still values characteristics and associates some people with
power and privilege and access, and their voice holds more
weight when it comes to so many different issues.
So we do need more men, more white privileged men to speak up
on a range of different issues, not just paternity leave, not
just gender equality, but social justice first and foremost.
Also think secondly, it's interesting to understand like
why this is the case. Why is it that that has happened
with this paternity campaign? But why is it that we as a
society value men's voices more? So Marianne Seacart's got a book
called The Authority Gap and it is an incredible book.
I would say it's probably the book around gender equality and
women's experiences in the workplace that has changed like
my thinking the most. And I've interviewed her, met
her a couple of times. She's she's incredible and she
talks quite a lot about historically men have been in
positions of power. The patriarchy has put men in
positions of power in parliament, in leadership
organisations, in the home. They have taken up more space in
movies, they have more speaking lines.
They have more control in the household.
They want TV more. There's more male critics, more
male colonists. So we have been socialized to
believe that men should be in positions of power.
And interestingly, when it comes to parents, we are more likely
to overestimate our son's IQ and underestimate our daughter's IQ.
And there's lots of research that shows how children
internalize that and how they think about themselves as well.
And so Mary will talk about the fact that there's a lot of
research going into this and there's lots of research that
shows that we men and women will question a woman's authority
more. We will interrupt women more.
We will assume a man's competence until he proves us
otherwise, and we will assume a woman's incompetence until they
prove us otherwise and that we are more influenced by a man's
view. And she showed that even in
gender, mixed gender discussions, men dominate
conversations. And in work meetings, women are
interrupted 2.6 times more often than men.
And she gave an example, a really, really good example, to
show that this isn't just in regards to your level of
seniority in the workplace. So she sat down with Supreme
Court judges and she found that when it comes to female judges,
they are interrupted 4 times more than their male
counterparts. And so some people may think,
OK, interrupting is a trivial thing.
That's a trivial example. But I think what interrupting
shows is my opinion and what I've got to say means more than
you, means I have the power to interrupt you and cut off what
you're saying it means. What you're saying is not that
important. And especially in a group
setting, that is ultimately disempowering and disrespectful.
And in her research, she thinks she talks about what that means
in terms of how people show up. So Mary was talking about the
fact that because that is the case, a lot of women will either
show up and be quieter because they know they're going to be
interrupted, or will be more assertive and be more confident.
Now, we could say to women, OK, be more confident and be more
assertive. But the problem with that, as
Mary says, is that when we do that, women are more unlikeable
because we don't like women to be too loud and too confident
and too assertive when it comes to likability.
Likability is more important to women when it comes to
progression than it is important to men.
So I think we need to like, obviously fix the system around
that. We need to increase
understanding of the authority gap, understand that for men and
women, but predominantly for men, have really been socialized
to respect a man's opinion more, to listen to him, to value his
opinion, to see him as a leader, to see him assume he's in a
position of power. And when it comes to what's
happened with this, with this campaign, I think some of it is
born out of that. It's that when these men speak,
we want to listen to them more. We want to value their opinion
and stuff like that. And I think it's sad.
I think it's an indication of why there was a lack of female
representation in some senior roles as well as the motherhood
penalty and other things. But I think this bias in who we
give authority to, who we value their opinion, who we interrupt,
who we see as leaders, who we trust and believe is, is very
much there. And rethinking that and
challenging that is so important.
And yes, I'm so glad you brought it up because I think the easier
thing would have been not to. But I think it's really
important to confront these conversations and say we can
celebrate progress, but also we can reflect on the reality of
how we get to certain places as well.
We also know that when men become fathers, they get pay
rises and promotions because they are seen as more committed
to their job because they will now have a child to provide for.
Whereas when women become mothers, they're seen as
distracted and less committed to their job because they have a
child to care for. And Stella?
Really says that she experienced this, that when she had her
first baby, she was told by people within the labour
movement, oh, it's probably best you don't go for any of the more
senior roles now. It's probably best you sort of
stay in your lane because you're now a mom and, you know, so
that's obviously going to affect your ability to do your job and.
Yeah, we're, we're seeing that Luke Charters feels very
confident to say I'm a dad 1st and MP second and clearly
doesn't believe that that's going to have a negative impact
on his ability to progress within the labour movement.
So, you know, I am really grateful to Luke Charters for
taking paternity leave and for making taking that stand because
without people like him saying they're going to take paternity
leave, nothing is going to change.
So this is nothing against Luke Charters.
It's just always very interesting to me, these
different tones and the way people react to different people
asking, yeah, exactly the same thing.
They do, they do. You know, I think I've seen that
bicy in my own life. I remember going to to meetings
with my manager who was a woman who was very much more CD than
me. I was her PA really.
And going to meetings with external clients and people
looking at me and talking to me. I think I'm here to take the
minutes, mate. Like I don't know what you're
talking about, but they would assume that I am.
Person in charge and I worked with a car company last year and
they did some some customer feedback and they found that in
their showrooms the feedback was that when a man and a woman
husband or wife or partners going to buy a car.
The feedback from the woman was that the sales assistant, which
is generally going to be a man, would talk to their partner, the
man, even if the woman was buying the car.
And so that really put put a lot of customers off because the
woman was like, look, I'm here to buy the car, OK?
Of course, decision we're making together because I, I value his
opinion, of course, but ultimately I'm going to be
driving the car. So I am going to be the one
that's making the ultimate decision.
I'm not going to come here. I'll rather go somewhere else
where I feel respected. So because that car company knew
they were potentially using customers, they invested in
training to help their sales assistants make sure they're
reducing that bias and really finding out, OK, who's buying
the car, who's decision maker or just talking to both parties if
they don't know. But it took profit and money for
them to take that stand and say we need to address that.
But it happens all the time. We've all seen it.
You know, if you're a man at work or in life, you've
experienced it. I would say as a black man, I've
experienced it as well, like being a minority within a room,
especially in my like, more junior years as well.
You definitely feel like you're not your, your voice doesn't
carry that weight. I would say as I've become more
senior and older, I don't feel that anymore.
Mary's research says otherwise. She says that even when women do
become more senior, that doesn't take away the authority gap.
But do you feel like Jodie, do you feel like sometimes you
don't get listened to because you're a woman?
Like even now with what you've done.
No, not anymore. Actually, I, I definitely have
experienced all the things that you were talking about earlier
in my career where, you know, I would be in charge and a man
would come in and they would only speak to the man then, not
to me. In fact, I did some work in
Moscow for a while ago and I went with my partner because we
were both actually working at the same company.
Don't ever do that, by the way. And we, I was leading the
projects and then it's like nobody would speak to me there.
They wouldn't even look at me. They would only look at Tom.
But no, not anymore, I think. I think I've reached a point as
well in my career where I don't people don't tend to ignore me
from speaking, which feels feels good, doesn't it?
I think now they get the red carpet out for you, Joey, don't
they? I mean, I've seen people meet
Joey, get very nervous. I've seen people make you get
very starstruck. They're like, Oh my gosh, it's.
Ridiculous, though, isn't. It it's Joey.
Who's totally ridiculous? It's yeah, but it's like, you
know, it takes a long time to get there and you can be held
back on the way because people are not taking me seriously.
Percent. And that that feeling, I know
what it feels like to be the only person in the room and feel
like everything that I say is going to be scrutinized.
I don't want to sound stupid. I don't want to say the wrong
thing. You doubt yourself and what
happens then is you, you spend all your brain space
overthinking about what you're going to say and overthinking
about the dynamics in the room and who you are and how they're
thinking about you, what you're wearing and how they judging you
and all this stuff. You spend so much brain space
thinking that that it takes away from actually just saying what
you want to say. And there've been so many times
in a meeting, I've had a point been overthinking.
I didn't say it, someone else says it and it's a really,
really good point. And I think, bloody hell, if I
was in my own head, it would be fine.
What I, what I find now is really interesting is that I
feel like I have two experiences in my life, Not all the time,
but often is that I'll go to an event or I'll be somewhere and
you know, I might be a guest speaker or a keynote speaker or
whatever. So people will treat me really,
really well, like loads of respect and they will show me
their best self, which is incredible and it's really,
really nice and whatnot. But then often I'm in public
spaces with some of the same kind of people.
And because they don't know me, they don't know who I am, they
don't know my personality or what I do for work, they still
look at me with suspicion. Years ago, 2019, I was, I went
to the UNUK Awards and I got AUN Women UK Change Maker Award and
it was incredible. There was a dinner in Mayfair
and we were celebrating. My wife was there, did a speech,
we had drinks, had food. It was really, really good.
And it was a celebration and I felt great and you know, people
were were celebrating me and whatnot.
It was amazing. Bear in mind there's probably
only three or four black people in in the room at this point.
I get on the train and I get to Houston.
I get on the train and I sit there.
My wife's sitting on the other side.
The train is packed, right? People are standing up, but no
one was sitting next to me on the train.
And I remember thinking, wow, this is so interesting.
So I'm about 6 foot black guy. You know, I have an earring.
If I've got my haircut, I've got to sit in my hair.
You know, people in one instance will celebrate me, but then when
they see me in public they will be scared.
And when you have those experiences right side by side
against each other, it's a bit of a mind fuck.
You know. And it's a bit of a kind of like
you're in two different worlds and you kind of want to say to
the people when you're inside, how would you see me outside if
I wasn't on the stage? If you just saw me, if I knocked
on your door because I was doing the plumbing or something, what
would you think? And then vice versa, if I'm on
the train, you don't want to sit next to me and all the other
seats are packed. Everyone's standing up because
they're hot and tired, but for some reason, I want to sit here.
If I told you about the work I've done, you might look at me
differently. So it's that real kind of.
I think if you're in the minority in the world, in a
different space, the way you have to navigate the world is a
lot different. And that takes up a lot of brain
space and it's tiring. Yeah.
Yeah, wow.
That's yeah. I mean, I can imagine that there
was a real punch in the face. If you have those two events
butting up against each other. It's a real stark Wow, eye
opener. I the only time more recently
where I have experienced quite obvious misogyny was actually I
went to give evidence in Parliament in the House of Lords
and one of the Lords that was interviewing me, I'm not going
to say his name. Very wealthy man, Tory Lord,
you're. Not going to call him out early.
I. Do not actually remember his
name but I could give you some information that would mean
you'd figure out who he was. But he was so obnoxious when I
was giving evidence and he kept questioning and questioning me.
But obviously I had an answer for everything.
And then during the evidence session he said, do you know
what, I'm going to invite you to my office and we can have a
conversation about this. So when the evidence session had
finished I went to go to the toilet and when I came out he
was there and I said. Waiting outside the toilet.
No, no, he wasn't perfectly waiting for me.
He had also gone to the toilet. No, that would be weird.
Yeah, that would be weird. And then I said to him, but you
said in that session that you were going to invite me to your
office to have a conversation about flexible working.
Were you being serious? And he stopped, looked me up and
down, you know, properly up and down.
And then when you came to my office, I would eat you for
breakfast. Seriously.
And I, I was really caught off guard because I've hadn't
experienced that sort of sexism for quite a long time at this
point. Obviously experienced it
previously, but it's been a few years and we're in the House of
Lords. You know, it's not what you
expect. And and then he laughed as if he
was joking. He wasn't joking.
He was trying to intimidate me. But there are still clearly
wealthy, powerful people who use intimidation as a tactic to get
what they want. And he wouldn't have spoken to
me like that if I was a man. It was very obvious to me.
Yeah, and it's important we have these conversations, you know,
like it is super important. I'm sure everyone listening.
I think we have quite progressive listeners, you know,
and hopefully people who can reflect on whether they have
been the perpetrator in these circumstances.
I think it's a really good thing to admit that to themselves.
No one's perfect. It's Father's Day on Sunday,
what are you doing? Yeah, I don't know.
I hope I'm getting half a day to myself.
I. Said to you, Jeremy, I'm trying
to spend more alone time. We're in the South by Southwest.
They're the same guy. We can't remember his name.
We'll get his name. And he had a chart that showed
the demographic of people who are spending the most time
alone. Unfortunately, it's young men
under the age of 25, I think it is, who are spending the most
time alone, more time alone than pensioners.
And I was saying I need to be spending more time alone.
My aspiration is to spend more time alone.
I want to be more alone. And what I find is really
interesting is that on Mother's Day, everyone gives the mum time
off, right? Go go to the spa for half a day
or something, you know, go and relax.
Go have some have have some new time obviously, because mums do
the majority of childcare. So on Father's Day the dad's
going to be at the park at 9:00 AM with their kids.
Because I guess the reality is that, you know, mothers do do
the majority of childcare. Many dads do not spend much time
with their children at all. What would I like?
I would like my dream Father's Day would be breakfast in bed.
Like some sausages, scrambled egg, cuppa tea, Yorkshire tea
with oat milk overly. Maybe watching Netflix for an
hour. That would be lovely.
And then I'd go to the gym. I'd go to the gym.
We're very lucky enough to go to a gym that has a nice spa, so
we'll go to the spa as well on my own.
By the way, this is all by myself, even if the breakfast is
in bed is by myself. Yeah.
And then I'll come home. I'll swan home about 2:00.
Maybe I'll have a nap for an hour or so.
Everyone loves a nap. This sounds amazing.
Carry on. I'll have a mid afternoon nap
and then from about 3:00 PM we'll do the family thing and
we'll go for a meal. The kids will give me their
their handmade Father's Day cards.
They'll give me the socks. I love a good sock by the way,
Save the socks. I am a sock connoisseur like in
in the winter, I love a good thick sock because my feet get
very cold. And what I have found, though I
don't know if you've found this Jolie, sometimes I forget my
sock game if I'm, if I'm doing a panel or doing a talk, I think
about my whole outfit and my socks will let me down.
So I need to update my kind of going out funky sock collection.
Like that is when you know someone's made an effort,
they've got good socks on. I think this is a man thing.
I don't think women think about socks like that.
'Cause my mom, my mom looks like here.
No, it's just. This is just, yeah.
What are you talking about? I'm not really with you.
I have black socks or I have those socks that you can wear
with trainers where you have the comfort of a sock but not the
embarrassment of wearing 1, you know, where they sort of hide
themselves under the trainer. That's.
Ankle socks. As far as it goes for me with
socks, I did notice that in terms of presents for Father's
Day, when it when you go into a shop and it's Mother's Day, it's
pink everywhere, isn't it? And hearts and teddies and
chocolates and flowers. And for Father's Day presents is
socks, aftershave or like discounted stuff like that seems
to be your options. And the and the Father's Day
cards all have the themes are either DIY, aren't they?
So they're like hammers, spanners, sheds or their beer or
they're football cars or they're really heavy on puns.
Like there's there's a lot of puns going on in Father's Day
cards or they're like laziness as if all dads want to do is
nap, which actually you have just said is what you want to
do. I would.
Love to do that for part of it they're.
Very accurate. Yeah, but I think it's a
reflection on just like the gender stereotypes, like it's
all a bit of a laugh. Dads are there for a little bit
of fun, which don't get me wrong, I like a laugh and I like
the fun too. But you definitely feel maybe
with the Mother's Day, it's a bit more emotional, it's a bit
more about the love and the connection and it's more flowery
and more soft. And I think maybe it's a
reflection on how comfortable do we feel expressing that to our
fathers, You know, telling our dads we love them, showing the
soft side, appreciating what they do for us on a day-to-day
basis. I've got to say, my eldest is
incredible with her words and so I'm expecting something pretty,
pretty soft and I'm expecting to cry on Father's Day because I'm
pretty sure she's going to write something amazing.
And also, if she was a boy, would she feel more comfortable
to do that? I probably don't know.
I mean. Do you probably my my boys will
write in the Father's Day card to Dad.
Thanks. Love me like so far as that'll
go. Yeah.
Thanks. But what do dads really want for
Father's Day? I think we want, obviously we
want better paternity leave. Of course we do.
Of course we want workplace cultures that support us
parenting loudly. We want that.
We want really inclusive health services that support dads
through the whole maternity process.
We want this dads to be seen as equal parents and for society to
value fathers not just for their ability to provide and protect,
but also their ability to love and comfort and offer their
children emotional stability. And be a be a friend and be
someone in the house, in the home or outside the home that
their children can love and learn from and find comfort in
and be taught by and be soft with.
And I think we're getting there very, very slowly.
But I think since I've started doing this work maybe nine years
ago now, there is so much more conversations about what it
means to be a dad, about inclusive fatherhood, services,
policies, so many more dads and like showing up now in public,
celebrating their fatherhood, talking about the challenges,
showing the softer side of themselves.
And Father's Day is a nice, it's a nice point to reflect on that,
you know, and to celebrate all the dads.
So if you are a dad listening, well done.
Hope you had a fantastic day. I hope you were spoiled.
I hope you got breakfast in bed. I hope you got a massage.
I hope you got a lovely pair of socks.
I love you. I hope you got some new boxers.
You can't go home with some boxer shorts.
I think that's a beautiful moment to end on.
So thank you everyone for joining us and who we got on
next week. Think we have Jessica Lahey or
Jessica Lahey? Yeah, Jessica Leahy, who is
going to be talking to us about addiction, isn't she?
Yeah, and we've had some emails about this, actually about
addiction. We see your emails.
We've had loads of requests to do more about male anger, more
about sex and porn, obviously the online world, but addiction
as well. So we, we hear you, we've got
the stuff, we've got some great guests come in and we're going
to make sure we're going to touch on all of the things that
are important to you as well. So I want to give a massive
shout out to Marnie Marzi. I met Marnie this week at an
event and Marnie listens to the podcast in the car with her
children, with her two sons. She has a nine year old and 11
year old. And she said to me that it
sparks conversation in the household and is a part of their
day-to-day routine. And I thought that is fantastic.
And it asked about the swearing, and she said she tells the kids
they can listen, they can hear, but they can't repeat it.
OK, kids, so don't, please don't repeat the swearing.
But thank you so much, Marnie. Like, it means a lot that you
listen. You listen with your family.
That means a lot to us. It's so touching that you use it
to spark conversations. Thank you so much.
Thank you for writing to us. Thank you for joining us.
And we will be joined by Jessica Leahy next week.
See you then. See ya.