Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / What Our Kids Watch - and Why Women Need Each Other
Transcript
- 0:05Speaker 1: What do you do when your child wants to watch
- 0:08Speaker 1: stuff that you don't think is appropriate for them, but
- 0:11Speaker 1: they're absolutely convinced that it is, and they're kind of
- 0:14Speaker 1: old enough to start making their own decisions around this.
- 0:18Speaker 1: It's a tough one and it's one that we tackle
- 0:19Speaker 1: today on the pod plus Missus Happy Families and the
- 0:23Speaker 1: incredible power of a community of women. I'm excited to
- 0:26Speaker 1: hear what you've got to say about this one, Kylie,
- 0:28Speaker 1: because I got to be a shadow, a shadow, a
- 0:30Speaker 1: fly on the wall. I got to be in the
- 0:32Speaker 1: background as you had a wonderful experience with a fairly
- 0:36Speaker 1: large group of women at our house just recently. We're
- 0:39Speaker 1: going to talk about all that and more. Our Friday
- 0:42Speaker 1: edition of I'll Do Better Tomorrow is next. Stay with us.
- 0:48Speaker 1: This is the Happy Families podcast where you get real
- 0:50Speaker 1: parenting solutions every single day. It's astray as most downloaded
- 0:53Speaker 1: parenting podcast, where Justin and Kylie Carson. It's Friday, It's Friday,
- 0:57Speaker 1: It's Friday, the weekend. I just there's something light and
- 1:02Speaker 1: easy about Fridays that feel so good, Kylie. Today so
- 1:06Speaker 1: much to get into. Let's break it down. The stuff
- 1:09Speaker 1: that we've learned the stuff that's helped us to make
- 1:12Speaker 1: our families happier. Just before we do it, I've got
- 1:15Speaker 1: an email to share with you. I love doing this.
- 1:17Speaker 1: You never know what's coming. But got an email the
- 1:20Speaker 1: other day. This came from Anna, who said I loved, loved, loved,
- 1:26Speaker 1: loved all in capitals. Today's podcast as usual Doctor Justin,
- 1:31Speaker 1: but today was so emotional that I felt I need
- 1:34Speaker 1: to share. You always seem to help me see things
- 1:37Speaker 1: from a different perspective and challenge me to become a
- 1:39Speaker 1: better parent. And Kylie, what a gift she is. Now
- 1:44Speaker 1: before I read further, I just want to highlight this
- 1:47Speaker 1: isn't about saying how awesome we are, but we love
- 1:50Speaker 1: the fact that we get to make a difference in
- 1:52Speaker 1: people's lives. And last week, Kylie, the podcast was you
- 1:55Speaker 1: sharing how you feel like there's a lack of connection
- 1:58Speaker 1: at times when there's a big fight with the kids.
- 2:00Speaker 1: And one of the other kids told our daughter who
- 2:04Speaker 1: was fighting with you, that there would never be another
- 2:07Speaker 1: person on the planet who would love her so much,
- 2:09Speaker 1: and it was just it was a beautiful pot like
- 2:10Speaker 1: it was really, really, really nice. And this is what
- 2:13Speaker 1: Anna said. I was walking my dog This morning listening
- 2:15Speaker 1: to the podcast, and I found myself sobbing as I'd
- 2:17Speaker 1: listened to her story, it resonated so much with me.
- 2:21Speaker 1: There are times when I feel like my daughter hates me,
- 2:23Speaker 1: that we can't communicate, and that she'd probably rather have
- 2:26Speaker 1: a different mum. But listening today gave me a different perspective.
- 2:30Speaker 1: It reminded me that maybe my daughter and my son
- 2:33Speaker 1: are some of my greatest teachers. They constantly pushed me
- 2:36Speaker 1: beyond my comfort zone and challenged me to grow into
- 2:38Speaker 1: a better parent and a better person. But I'm well
- 2:41Speaker 1: aware that I'm very much a work in progress. You
- 2:44Speaker 1: and Kylie have inspired me to not only keep learning
- 2:47Speaker 1: and doing the work on myself, but also to study
- 2:49Speaker 1: and one day support and help others. I'm a credit
- 2:51Speaker 1: with grateful that I came across people like you. Thank
- 2:53Speaker 1: you for the wisdom, of the honesty and the hope
- 2:55Speaker 1: you bring to me and probably thousands of other families.
- 3:00Speaker 1: With the sparks that light my fire. Thank you, Anna.
- 3:04Speaker 1: I just love the email. I'm not sharing it so
- 3:06Speaker 1: that I can say how awesome are we? I'm sharing
- 3:10Speaker 1: it because when we do these, I'll do better tomorrow.
- 3:13Speaker 1: Podcasts sometimes we feel like we're a little bit too
- 3:15Speaker 1: much off. Here's what we're doing, and it's not enough
- 3:18Speaker 1: about other people. But it's these stories that touch and
- 3:22Speaker 1: his heart and people like that, and I just I
- 3:25Speaker 1: think we.
- 3:25Speaker 2: Learn through stories, though some of our greatest learning comes
- 3:28Speaker 2: by watching other people wrestle with challenges or other people
- 3:32Speaker 2: actually getting it right and seeing that it's actually not
- 3:36Speaker 2: as big as we thought it would be to be
- 3:39Speaker 2: able to have a positive impact. And I just I
- 3:43Speaker 2: love Anna's recognition that she's a work in progress. We're
- 3:46Speaker 2: all are work in progress, and we don't have to
- 3:49Speaker 2: get it right. We don't have to be perfect at it.
- 3:51Speaker 2: We just have to be trying. And our kids need
- 3:54Speaker 2: to know that we're not perfect. Our kids actually need
- 3:57Speaker 2: to know that we wrestle with these things that it
- 3:59Speaker 2: doesn't come easily because it gives them permission to make
- 4:02Speaker 2: mistakes and it's okay. There's just so much power in.
- 4:05Speaker 1: That and I can't help it. I know we said
- 4:08Speaker 1: we wouldn't do this, but I've just got to highlight
- 4:10Speaker 1: and his email is in stark contrast to the one
- 4:13Speaker 1: star review that I recently got that we recently got
- 4:16Speaker 1: on the podcast where I don't know. Mama Bear ninety
- 4:19Speaker 1: four said one star, awful bloke. It's well known in
- 4:22Speaker 1: the industry that no one likes this guy. Justin stopped
- 4:25Speaker 1: trying to grift off our kids and just spend more
- 4:28Speaker 1: time looking at yourself in the mirror. Some people say
- 4:32Speaker 1: some horrible stuff, but we know what our motives are,
- 4:36Speaker 1: and that is that we want to be helpful, full stop.
- 4:38Speaker 1: End of story. There is no grift. There is only
- 4:41Speaker 1: value added. And if we don't add value, you don't
- 4:44Speaker 1: have to listen. It's okay. One star review. So Ana,
- 4:47Speaker 1: thank you for making our day because I was a
- 4:49Speaker 1: bit sad when I saw that one star review three
- 4:51Speaker 1: months ago, and I just thought I'd compare in contrast
- 4:54Speaker 1: and which one feels more uplifting, which one feels better
- 4:56Speaker 1: to hear?
- 4:57Speaker 2: I know that the one star is about you specifically.
- 5:01Speaker 1: Also, there is no industry for I love that like
- 5:04Speaker 1: running the industry. Hat what industry like? I'm a parenting
- 5:07Speaker 1: but I work for myself. There there is no parenting
- 5:09Speaker 1: expert industry. Well maybe there is, but I've got good
- 5:12Speaker 1: relationships I think with most of the other people who
- 5:14Speaker 1: do the work that I do. I digress.
- 5:16Speaker 2: What were you going to say, I, just what kind
- 5:18Speaker 2: of person do you want to be? Do you want
- 5:20Speaker 2: to put light out into the world, or do you
- 5:21Speaker 2: want to throw shade at other people? I think when
- 5:24Speaker 2: things like that come up, I think it says more
- 5:26Speaker 2: about the other person and less about who they're speaking about.
- 5:30Speaker 2: Four times than not.
- 5:31Speaker 1: It reminds me of the poem by Edgar Guests. I
- 5:33Speaker 1: watched them tearing and building down a gang of men
- 5:36Speaker 1: in a busy town with a ho heve ho and
- 5:38Speaker 1: lusty yell. They swung a beam and a sidewall fell.
- 5:40Speaker 1: I asked the form, and these men skilled the men
- 5:42Speaker 1: you'd hire if you had to build. He gave me
- 5:44Speaker 1: a laugh and said, no, indeed, just common labor is
- 5:47Speaker 1: all I need. I can easily wreck in a day
- 5:49Speaker 1: or two what builders have taken a year to do.
- 5:53Speaker 1: And I thought to myself as I went my way,
- 5:55Speaker 1: which of these two roles have I tried to play?
- 5:57Speaker 1: Am I a builder who works with care, measuring life
- 5:59Speaker 1: by the rule square, Am I shaping my deeds by
- 6:02Speaker 1: a well made plan, patiently doing the best I can?
- 6:05Speaker 1: Or Am I a wrecker who walks the town, content
- 6:07Speaker 1: with the labor of tearing down this is so bad?
- 6:13Speaker 1: Do I need to rescue you? Look like you're about
- 6:15Speaker 1: to cry.
- 6:16Speaker 3: You are describe from the moment you read Anna's Land.
- 6:21Speaker 3: Oh my goodness. Okay, come on, let's go.
- 6:23Speaker 1: I love the podcast. This is why we do it.
- 6:26Speaker 1: We don't do it so that we can sit here
- 6:27Speaker 1: and cry and self congratulation. We do it because it
- 6:29Speaker 1: makes a difference. We do it because it makes a difference.
- 6:32Speaker 1: And your email helps us to remember that, especially when
- 6:35Speaker 1: there are some people who are content with wrecking and
- 6:37Speaker 1: tearing down. All right, Kylie, I'll do a better tomorrow.
- 6:41Speaker 1: Two quick stories from one from you. My one is
- 6:45Speaker 1: based on just the other day, I took Emily, our
- 6:48Speaker 1: twelve year old, to The Amazing Digital Circus. It's a movie.
- 6:52Speaker 1: She loves this stuff. I saw her watching it about
- 6:55Speaker 1: a year ago and I just I said, this is
- 6:57Speaker 1: not consiste of our values. I don't like it. I
- 6:58Speaker 1: don't want you're watching it. She's found ways to watch
- 7:01Speaker 1: it anyway, and she and her friends love to talk
- 7:05Speaker 1: about The Amazing Digital Circus. And I've watched a little
- 7:07Speaker 1: bit of it and I just find it completely appropriate,
- 7:09Speaker 1: not for kids. But I've never really sat downe you know,
- 7:11Speaker 1: how we're always saying, know what the kids are watching,
- 7:13Speaker 1: know what the kids are looking at, make sure that
- 7:15Speaker 1: you're in their digital lives. So we try really hard
- 7:17Speaker 1: to do That's the reality is. It's really tough to
- 7:22Speaker 1: do that and to do it well. And so she
- 7:25Speaker 1: said she wanted to go and see The Amazing Digital Circus.
- 7:27Speaker 1: I did not want to watch it because I'm not
- 7:29Speaker 1: interested in this stuff at all, and you said, no,
- 7:32Speaker 1: you really need to be in her life. This is
- 7:33Speaker 1: what we tell other people to do. So you made
- 7:35Speaker 1: me go and do it, and you were right it
- 7:37Speaker 1: needed to be done. We sat in the cinema and
- 7:39Speaker 1: I watched this this show. So I'm going to sound
- 7:43Speaker 1: a little bit judge you here. This is not my
- 7:44Speaker 1: kind of stuff. So if you and your family love
- 7:47Speaker 1: The Amazing Digital Circus, forgive me. I think it's absolute rot.
- 7:51Speaker 1: I think it's literally brain or I think it's trash.
- 7:55Speaker 1: But even if you do like it, this stuff is
- 7:57Speaker 1: not for kids. And if your kids are watching The
- 7:59Speaker 1: Amazing Digital Circus and you don't know what it is,
- 8:03Speaker 1: can I recommend that you sit down and watch an
- 8:04Speaker 1: episode with them and get your head around it. This
- 8:07Speaker 1: is a cartoon it's bright, it's shiny, it looks like
- 8:11Speaker 1: it's fun. It's kinda zany, a little bit weird and
- 8:15Speaker 1: out there, and it's really big in the in the
- 8:18Speaker 1: comic fandom zone. So I went and sat there. The
- 8:23Speaker 1: adult themes, the deep heavy existential dread and anxiety, and
- 8:32Speaker 1: I'm even going to say traumatic content that it brings up,
- 8:37Speaker 1: the violence, the pacing, the way that it does all
- 8:42Speaker 1: of these awful scene switching. Everything about this I hated.
- 8:51Speaker 1: And my twelve year old daughter is sitting there with
- 8:54Speaker 1: her eyes wide open, soaking it up like it's kind
- 8:57Speaker 1: of like if I'm if, I'm going to say to her,
- 9:00Speaker 1: don't drink the poison. The poison is really bad, but
- 9:03Speaker 1: it's up to you. And then I put it in
- 9:05Speaker 1: front of her and she picks it up and has
- 9:08Speaker 1: a sip and says, oh, my goodness, that poisonous. Good.
- 9:11Speaker 1: Give me more. Towards the end, the movie actually becomes
- 9:16Speaker 1: quite redemptive and there's real light and joy, but oh
- 9:21Speaker 1: my goodness, does it travel to dark places before it
- 9:24Speaker 1: lifts itself back into the light. If you've got kids
- 9:27Speaker 1: that I'd say over fourteen, and they're into it for whatever,
- 9:31Speaker 1: weird strange reasons that my fifty year old brain doesn't comprehend.
- 9:34Speaker 1: Because that's the modern world, and I'm apparently getting sold
- 9:37Speaker 1: that I don't get it anymore. Then that's fine, But
- 9:41Speaker 1: there's course language, there's really heavy themes. There's some completely
- 9:45Speaker 1: inappropriate innuendo and content. And we got to have a
- 9:51Speaker 1: really good conversation when we came out. It was so
- 9:54Speaker 1: hard Kylie. So I've looked at her. I said, you
- 9:56Speaker 1: know how I felt about that, don't you? And she said,
- 9:58Speaker 1: h that's she.
- 10:01Speaker 2: Actually, when she realized that you were going to take her,
- 10:03Speaker 2: didn't want to go.
- 10:04Speaker 1: Yeah, because she's afraid of judgment and being in trouble.
- 10:08Speaker 1: And so as we walked back to the car, I said,
- 10:12Speaker 1: you already know how I feel about it, but I
- 10:14Speaker 1: really want to understand, because you know how I was saying,
- 10:17Speaker 1: get curious, not furious, Understand, don't reprimand I just said,
- 10:20Speaker 1: I really want to understand. What are the things about
- 10:24Speaker 1: it that you love? We can talk about the bad
- 10:26Speaker 1: stuff later, and we need to, but what are the
- 10:28Speaker 1: things about it that you really really like? And she
- 10:32Speaker 1: started to explain the stuff that she likes. Now I
- 10:34Speaker 1: don't care for and have an interest in the stuff
- 10:38Speaker 1: that she said that she likes about it, but she's
- 10:41Speaker 1: got legitimate reasons for liking it. They're legitimate to her.
- 10:45Speaker 1: And it was really interesting to sit there and listen
- 10:46Speaker 1: to her describe why she likes this stuff. And once
- 10:51Speaker 1: she shared all of that, I asked if I could
- 10:54Speaker 1: share with her what I liked, which was very hard
- 10:57Speaker 1: for me to do, and I told her that I
- 11:00Speaker 1: really loved the redemptive end. I said, the last ten
- 11:02Speaker 1: or fifteen minutes of it were actually really beautiful. It
- 11:04Speaker 1: was actually really beautiful. And then I said, can we
- 11:10Speaker 1: talk about the bad stuff? And she said yeah, And
- 11:13Speaker 1: I said, it took us an hour to get to
- 11:14Speaker 1: the nice stuff, and that hour was heavy and dark
- 11:18Speaker 1: and violent, and it was not for kids, like this
- 11:22Speaker 1: is not for you. How did you feel about it?
- 11:25Speaker 1: And she told me this felt very different and much
- 11:30Speaker 1: harsher than all the other stuff. And I didn't really
- 11:33Speaker 1: like it either, but I really liked the end. I
- 11:36Speaker 1: don't know that we're ever going to completely get her
- 11:38Speaker 1: off the amazing digital circus and some of the other
- 11:40Speaker 1: stuff that she's into, but the conversation was valuable and
- 11:45Speaker 1: it built trust because she saw that I was willing
- 11:48Speaker 1: to sit in that place with her and learn about
- 11:53Speaker 1: things that mattered to her. So that's my old about
- 11:55Speaker 1: it tomorrow.
- 11:56Speaker 2: What I love about this story, Justin is so often TV,
- 12:03Speaker 2: for as long as TV's been around, has kind of
- 12:06Speaker 2: been used as this amazing babysitter for us. We can
- 12:10Speaker 2: put our children in front of a screen and know
- 12:12Speaker 2: that they're not going anywhere, that'll be exactly where we
- 12:15Speaker 2: left them when we go back looking for them. And
- 12:19Speaker 2: there has always been concern about content on the screen,
- 12:24Speaker 2: But what often happens is our children are watching the TV.
- 12:27Speaker 2: We walk in, we hear a bad word, or we
- 12:30Speaker 2: hear an in exchange between characters that we don't like,
- 12:34Speaker 2: We lose the plot, we get cranky about it, and
- 12:36Speaker 2: the kids are jarred by our response, but we haven't
- 12:40Speaker 2: actually taken the time to understand. And while it meant
- 12:45Speaker 2: number one, you had to sit through something that you
- 12:47Speaker 2: did not want to sit through, it gave you power
- 12:52Speaker 2: to have a conversation with her that you couldn't have
- 12:56Speaker 2: otherwise had. That's the first thing. But the second thing
- 12:59Speaker 2: I really love about this is that it changes the
- 13:04Speaker 2: way your child watches what they're watching. They're no longer
- 13:07Speaker 2: just passively consuming whatever is in front of them. They're
- 13:11Speaker 2: actually feeling things differently because they know that you're watching it,
- 13:16Speaker 2: and so it's almost like they're taking a different perspective.
- 13:19Speaker 2: They're watching it and wondering what you're thinking, which changes
- 13:23Speaker 2: the way they see it. And as a result, when
- 13:25Speaker 2: she came home, I asked her how it went, and
- 13:27Speaker 2: she said, well, it went better than I thought it did.
- 13:30Speaker 2: Dad didn't totally hate it. And then she said, there
- 13:33Speaker 2: are quite a few things that I didn't agree with,
- 13:35Speaker 2: she said, but I still liked it, and that will
- 13:38Speaker 2: sit with her and so now when she watches something else,
- 13:42Speaker 2: there will be just this little voice in the back
- 13:44Speaker 2: of her head that's going, I'm not sure about this.
- 13:48Speaker 2: She's not going to get it perfect, and she's going
- 13:51Speaker 2: to want to watch the things that she wants to watch.
- 13:53Speaker 2: But it gives us power to have really important conversations
- 13:57Speaker 2: and we get to educate over time.
- 13:59Speaker 1: Up next, the Power of Women Spending time with women.
- 14:04Speaker 1: Stay with us it told me about it tomorrow on
- 14:13Speaker 1: the Happy Families podcast. Missus Happy Families. You've had a
- 14:16Speaker 1: big girls night and you need to talk about it
- 14:19Speaker 1: with everyone.
- 14:21Speaker 2: Most people would suggest that maybe I was an event's
- 14:23Speaker 2: coordinator in a previous life or something. I love having
- 14:27Speaker 2: a great event, and I love putting it on. I
- 14:30Speaker 2: love creating an atmosphere where people just want to come
- 14:33Speaker 2: and they can just relax into it and they don't
- 14:36Speaker 2: want to leave because they've just loved the feeling of
- 14:39Speaker 2: being together. And last weekend I was in charge of
- 14:43Speaker 2: hosting book club, and we had read a book. It's
- 14:46Speaker 2: called The Book of Longings by Sue Kidmunk, and it's
- 14:49Speaker 2: actually written from the perspective of a fictional wife of Jesus,
- 14:54Speaker 2: and it was a really, really awesome read. And so
- 14:57Speaker 2: I decided to have a themed in Jerusalem. I turned
- 15:01Speaker 2: our laund room into like a courtyard in Jerusalem.
- 15:04Speaker 1: I walked into the house and there's a dining table
- 15:07Speaker 1: with the legs sawn off so that it's shin height.
- 15:10Speaker 1: You've got blankets and rugs and vases and palm trees.
- 15:14Speaker 1: And I didn't recognize our house. You had completely transformed
- 15:19Speaker 1: the room. I I wondered where I was and what
- 15:22Speaker 1: was going on.
- 15:23Speaker 2: I was so excited about it. I'd woken up at
- 15:25Speaker 2: two thirty in the morning planning in my head how
- 15:28Speaker 2: it was all going to come together, and normally book
- 15:31Speaker 2: club is not this big a deal.
- 15:33Speaker 1: But I do love an event.
- 15:34Speaker 2: I do love an event. I love an excuse to
- 15:36Speaker 2: be creative. That's actually what this comes down to. It's
- 15:39Speaker 2: a creative outlet for me that I don't often get
- 15:42Speaker 2: to enjoy. And so I'd done little handouts and I'd
- 15:47Speaker 2: organized a menu, and I was really excited. I asked
- 15:50Speaker 2: my friends to get dressed up in biblical attire. We
- 15:53Speaker 2: had the scarfs on our head and almost heshi and sacks.
- 15:58Speaker 2: We were all in our little linens and everybody did it,
- 16:02Speaker 2: and we all showed up, and everybody was just excited
- 16:05Speaker 2: to be together. But what I learned as we kind
- 16:09Speaker 2: of spent this time together is when we're intentional about
- 16:13Speaker 2: creating space to come together collectively as women, to leave
- 16:19Speaker 2: behind the cares of today, which may have been massive,
- 16:22Speaker 2: may have been hard. And I have friends that I
- 16:24Speaker 2: know just carrying the weight of the world on their
- 16:28Speaker 2: shoulders right now, and for them to be able to
- 16:30Speaker 2: come into a space where they didn't have to be anyone,
- 16:33Speaker 2: they weren't needed for anything. And in one case, we
- 16:37Speaker 2: didn't even actually talk. She just sat but she got
- 16:41Speaker 2: to take in this richness of conversation and acknowledgement that
- 16:46Speaker 2: as women, it's so easy to get caught up in
- 16:49Speaker 2: our day to day lives and we do it all
- 16:52Speaker 2: alone and we feel alone. But we can create these
- 16:56Speaker 2: spaces where we can just for a few hours, reminded
- 17:00Speaker 2: of who we are outside of wife and mum or
- 17:05Speaker 2: colleague or you know, boss or whatever that looks like,
- 17:07Speaker 2: whatever those roles are that feel heavy in our lives,
- 17:10Speaker 2: and we get to come together and we get to
- 17:12Speaker 2: buoy one another up. We get to elevate our thinking
- 17:15Speaker 2: and stretch thinking, change perspectives like just have space to
- 17:23Speaker 2: breathe and to enjoy one another. No one wanted to leave.
- 17:28Speaker 2: We have a teeny tiny house. No one slept until
- 17:32Speaker 2: they left.
- 17:34Speaker 1: The whole family. We were all awake, and it was
- 17:36Speaker 1: like eleven o'clock at night, and I'm laying in bed.
- 17:38Speaker 1: I've got to get up at three thirty the next
- 17:40Speaker 1: morning to take Lily to work. I'm just going, can
- 17:43Speaker 1: you just go? I didn't say it out loud, and
- 17:44Speaker 1: I'm thinking, you need to go. I need some sleep.
- 17:48Speaker 1: And I'm also laying there thinking this is so good,
- 17:53Speaker 1: this is so valuable. It's beautiful. I was in the
- 17:56Speaker 1: kitchen for most of the afternoon and evening helping you
- 17:59Speaker 1: to make sure that this was all taken care of,
- 18:02Speaker 1: and it was just delightful to hear the conversations. At
- 18:07Speaker 1: the risk of being a little bit provocative, this is
- 18:10Speaker 1: why we need women only spaces. I think we also
- 18:15Speaker 1: need men only spaces, but this is why we need
- 18:17Speaker 1: women only spaces. I listened, I eavesdropped as I was
- 18:20Speaker 1: in the kitchen, I could hear what was going on
- 18:21Speaker 1: in the living room. The conversations that you were having
- 18:26Speaker 1: were the kinds of conversations that you simply wouldn't have
- 18:29Speaker 1: if there were men sitting around the table with you,
- 18:31Speaker 1: if they'd come along with their husbands and we were
- 18:33Speaker 1: having a dinner party, you just wouldn't have those discussions.
- 18:37Speaker 1: And as a dad of six daughters and hearing you
- 18:40Speaker 1: in your element with this wonderful, creative, enjoyable night and
- 18:44Speaker 1: what was like fifteen women in our living room, it
- 18:48Speaker 1: just struck me as there is so much power in
- 18:51Speaker 1: getting a bunch of women together so that they can
- 18:55Speaker 1: share their experiences. They can talk about their perimenopausal and
- 18:59Speaker 1: me apausal dramas and yeah, again. It just it really
- 19:04Speaker 1: stood out to me that number One, you did something
- 19:07Speaker 1: effortful like this was not easy. You transformed our house.
- 19:11Speaker 1: You spent a day cooking. I had to spend the
- 19:14Speaker 1: night in the kitchen like there was so much work
- 19:18Speaker 1: that went into it. And I know everyone says, I
- 19:19Speaker 1: don't have time, I don't have the resources. It's too much.
- 19:22Speaker 1: But you did it, and the payoff was huge. It
- 19:26Speaker 1: just requires intention and effort and a little bit of
- 19:28Speaker 1: sacrifice it but sacrifice means you give up something of
- 19:32Speaker 1: lesser value of something of greater value. You gave up
- 19:35Speaker 1: the lesser value of I don't know, having a quiet,
- 19:38Speaker 1: easy NYE for the greater value of bringing fifteen women
- 19:41Speaker 1: together to share and talk and eat. I mean, you
- 19:45Speaker 1: feasted right. And it was just as an observer, a
- 19:49Speaker 1: very distant outside observer who was clearly not welcome when
- 19:52Speaker 1: I walked into the room.
- 19:55Speaker 3: You may have picked a really bad time to inject yourself,
- 19:59Speaker 3: but there was there was some very heated conversation about
- 20:02Speaker 3: perimenopausal symptoms and how men just don't get it, and
- 20:08Speaker 3: you walked in at that very moment to say, you
- 20:10Speaker 3: don't know how hard we've got it.
- 20:13Speaker 1: I said up with a big smile on my face
- 20:14Speaker 1: like they knew, they knew I was joking.
- 20:16Speaker 2: You were shut down and talked to go find yourself.
- 20:19Speaker 2: A man came somewhere.
- 20:20Speaker 1: Somebody said, you need a men's troop. Off you go
- 20:23Speaker 1: go complay to the men so you'll take home message
- 20:27Speaker 1: because we didn't need to wrap this up.
- 20:28Speaker 2: I speak to so many women who tell me how
- 20:31Speaker 2: lonely they are or how isolated they feel. It only
- 20:36Speaker 2: takes one person for that to change, one person to
- 20:39Speaker 2: stand up and say, hey, let's come over, and it
- 20:42Speaker 2: doesn't have to be a full out night. Literally. One
- 20:46Speaker 2: of the women there said, she said, as much as
- 20:48Speaker 2: I've loved this, what I love most about book club
- 20:51Speaker 2: is that we just take the time to come together,
- 20:54Speaker 2: she said. We don't need all this stuff. So even
- 20:58Speaker 2: if it's just everybody bring a plate and we just
- 21:02Speaker 2: come together to just have some nibbles and a drink.
- 21:05Speaker 2: It doesn't matter what it is. But be intentional, be effortful,
- 21:09Speaker 2: make the time to connect with good women who uplift
- 21:16Speaker 2: and strengthen you as an individual, and it will change
- 21:21Speaker 2: your life. Like I can't overstate that.
- 21:25Speaker 1: Yeah, you go back to the poem, that I shared
- 21:27Speaker 1: a builder or a wrecker. People who build people, people
- 21:31Speaker 1: who take the time out, put the effort in intention.
- 21:34Speaker 1: I want you to do it every month. Obviously there
- 21:36Speaker 1: are fifteen other people that has to be shared around
- 21:38Speaker 1: and there's a process, but it was It felt so
- 21:42Speaker 1: good to have all of those people in our house.
- 21:45Speaker 1: It also meant that we had to clean up the
- 21:46Speaker 1: house so they could come over, and I really loved
- 21:48Speaker 1: having a clique.
- 21:51Speaker 2: The challenge with anything like that is once you pack
- 21:53Speaker 2: everything away, it feels pretty bare.
- 21:57Speaker 1: The Happy Family podcast is produced by Justin Rula from
- 22:00Speaker 1: Bridge Mediumhammis provides our admin and other support. Have a
- 22:03Speaker 1: great weekend and if you would like more info to
- 22:06Speaker 1: make your family happier, visit us at Happyfamilies dot com
- 22:09Speaker 1: dot You also quick reminder the brand new book Boys,
- 22:12Speaker 1: Building Strong young Men from the Inside Out. It comes
- 22:14Speaker 1: out next Tuesday. You can pre order out from book
- 22:16Speaker 1: toopia dot com dot a U. We've got a whole
- 22:19Speaker 1: lot of freebies that you can get if you jump
- 22:21Speaker 1: onto Happy Families and let us know your receipt number. Boys.
- 22:26Speaker 1: It's out on Tuesday. Pre order now