Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / What It's Really Like to Have a Big Family

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What It's Really Like to Have a Big Family · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

0:05
Speaker 1: When you have a big family, there is so much
0:08
Speaker 1: to do. There's no other way to say it. It's relentless.
0:11
Speaker 1: The sun hasn't come up, and you've got kids running
0:14
Speaker 1: around everywhere. They've got to beat bases. There's toys everywhere,
0:18
Speaker 1: there's push bikes everywhere, there's skateboards in the way. You're
0:21
Speaker 1: unsuccessfully trying to dodge and walk through the house or
0:25
Speaker 1: the yard without stuffing your toe or kicking something. There's
0:30
Speaker 1: so much energy, there's so much activity. It takes a
0:34
Speaker 1: village and the organizational skills of a military commander to
0:40
Speaker 1: keep a family of How many kids do we have again,
0:42
Speaker 1: hunting six, so it's a family of eight. But we've
0:45
Speaker 1: got two sons in law and a granddaughter as well,
0:47
Speaker 1: so we're up to eleven in our family now to
0:49
Speaker 1: try to pull it all together. Some people think we're crazy,
0:53
Speaker 1: Well we are a little bit. Today we're going to
0:56
Speaker 1: talk about the nation's fertility crisis, why families are getting smaller,
1:01
Speaker 1: what it's really like to have a big family in
1:05
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six. That's next. Stay with us. Hello and
1:11
Speaker 1: welcome to the Happy Families Podcasts. Real parenting solutions every
1:14
Speaker 1: single day. It's Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast. We are
1:17
Speaker 1: Justin and Kylie Coulson. We are the parents of six daughters,
1:21
Speaker 1: which makes us a little bit unusual.
1:24
Speaker 2: I just have to stop you. I just need to
1:26
Speaker 2: know is this going to be like a happy, hopeful
1:29
Speaker 2: podcast or a.
1:29
Speaker 1: Well that's up to you. You're just a.
1:32
Speaker 2: Little bit nervous about where this might end up.
1:35
Speaker 1: We're not trying to convince anybody to have more kids,
1:37
Speaker 1: but we're not telling them not to either. It's more
1:39
Speaker 1: of a so over the last couple of months, the newspapers,
1:43
Speaker 1: the news media, there's been a whole lot of stories
1:45
Speaker 1: about Australia's fertility challenges. And it's not like it was
1:50
Speaker 1: one article. I'm talking there's probably been half a dozen
1:53
Speaker 1: that have appeared in my various news feeds and my
1:55
Speaker 1: newsletters and the other things that I'm monitor to see
1:57
Speaker 1: what's going on and make sure that we're always relevant
1:59
Speaker 1: with what we're doing talking about on the podcast. There
2:01
Speaker 1: was an article, for example, in the Sidney Morning Herald.
2:04
Speaker 1: The article was published on June four, so month and
2:07
Speaker 1: a half ago, by Bronte Gosling, and she cites the
2:10
Speaker 1: following stats. She says much has been made of Australia's
2:14
Speaker 1: record low fertility rate, which fell to one point four
2:18
Speaker 1: to eight in twenty twenty four. Part of that can
2:21
Speaker 1: be attributed to the increase in adults leaving their child
2:24
Speaker 1: bearing years without children, whether by choice or against their will.
2:28
Speaker 1: But a maelstrom has swallowed parents who three decades ago
2:31
Speaker 1: ordinarily would have had three or more children. The soaring
2:35
Speaker 1: cost of living, lack of affordable family sized housing, and
2:40
Speaker 1: a childcare system in crisis have killed that Australian dream
2:44
Speaker 1: for many. She says. According to Census Dartup, single child
2:48
Speaker 1: families and those with two children increased by forty five
2:53
Speaker 1: and thirty seven percent, respectively between two thousand and six
2:57
Speaker 1: and two thousand and twenty one. In short, I think
3:01
Speaker 1: what she's really saying is big families are becoming I
3:05
Speaker 1: don't know. I don't want to say extinct, but they're
3:08
Speaker 1: certainly uncommon. When people find out we've got six kids,
3:12
Speaker 1: big reactions.
3:13
Speaker 2: When the kids were little, having six kids felt like
3:16
Speaker 2: a lot, yes, But now that they're growing up, I
3:20
Speaker 2: often look at it and feel like there's somebody missing,
3:22
Speaker 2: because it actually does.
3:23
Speaker 1: There is somebody missing there in a state or somewhere else.
3:26
Speaker 1: They're not looking at home anymore.
3:28
Speaker 2: But six doesn't feel bag anymore.
3:30
Speaker 1: Just on that. When I look at the family photo.
3:33
Speaker 1: So we recently had family photos taken, like in the
3:35
Speaker 1: last two or three months, and there's a picture of
3:38
Speaker 1: you with our six girls crowding around you, and I
3:42
Speaker 1: look at and I think, where are they all? It
3:44
Speaker 1: doesn't when I look at the photo of just our
3:47
Speaker 1: family without let's say, our two sons in law or
3:50
Speaker 1: without Indie our granddaughter, I look at it and go,
3:53
Speaker 1: it looks so small, like just the eight of us.
3:56
Speaker 1: It looks really really small. What's going on here? And
4:00
Speaker 1: what's really bizarre about it? For me? And I say
4:02
Speaker 1: this with no judgment at all, it's just this comparison.
4:05
Speaker 1: I think to myself, what must it be like to
4:07
Speaker 1: look at a family photo and there's just the two
4:09
Speaker 1: adults and a child, or a single parent and a child,
4:12
Speaker 1: or maybe three or four people maximum in the photo.
4:15
Speaker 1: It's like, where's everybody else? Like, what's going on? What
4:18
Speaker 1: do you do when you need an attainment and there's
4:20
Speaker 1: no one to pinch or push or annoy or niggl
4:25
Speaker 1: So anyway, I just thought that was really interesting. So
4:27
Speaker 1: in today's pod, with that as backdrop, I just wanted
4:29
Speaker 1: to talk about the three biggest challenges that we have
4:32
Speaker 1: with big families, and the three biggest I'm going to
4:35
Speaker 1: say blessings or benefits of having a big family, Like
4:38
Speaker 1: what's it actually like to have a big family in
4:42
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six? So I've got my list. I don't
4:45
Speaker 1: know if you've put a list together or not. You
4:46
Speaker 1: said that you knew exactly what you wanted to say,
4:48
Speaker 1: so I'm trusting you. I'm going to start both since
4:51
Speaker 1: I don't know what's coming from you, and I'm just
4:53
Speaker 1: going to rattle off my first big challenge in twenty
4:57
Speaker 1: twenty six of having a big family, and it's the I.
5:00
Speaker 2: Love how you say that, because it's actually not the energy.
5:03
Speaker 1: It's the chaos, well, the energy of the chaos. What
5:06
Speaker 1: I was going to say, though, is if I look
5:08
Speaker 1: back through the generations big families, everybody was outside, Like
5:12
Speaker 1: we weren't contained in a house, we weren't contained in
5:15
Speaker 1: a small yard. Everybody would have been outside. They were
5:17
Speaker 1: riding their bikes, their skateboards, they were down at the park,
5:19
Speaker 1: down at the beach, anywhere but home like people didn't
5:22
Speaker 1: stay home, at least not in my mind. When I
5:24
Speaker 1: think about my childhood in the seventies and the eighties,
5:27
Speaker 1: and I think about my parents' childhood and everything they've
5:29
Speaker 1: told me and my grandparents, people only came home to
5:32
Speaker 1: eat and sleep, and I guess take care of what
5:34
Speaker 1: had to happen at home, but everything else was outside.
5:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, So my childhood was a little bit different from you.
5:39
Speaker 2: I didn't actually kind of, I guess, get out of
5:42
Speaker 2: my backyard. But I spent hours and hours in my
5:47
Speaker 2: cubby house or on my swing set.
5:50
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, or climbing the tree.
5:51
Speaker 2: Yeah. Like those are my memories of my childhood. It
5:54
Speaker 2: wasn't playing indoors. I was always outside.
5:57
Speaker 1: Yeah. So my twenty twenty six number one is just
6:01
Speaker 1: you said chaos, I said energy. With six children, there
6:05
Speaker 1: is so much emotion all the time before breadfast?
6:10
Speaker 2: Is that because we've got all girls.
6:12
Speaker 1: I've talked to plenty of parents of boys, and there's
6:15
Speaker 1: still a lot of emotion. It's usually a bit more physical,
6:18
Speaker 1: a little less emotional, but there's still that chaos that
6:20
Speaker 1: fights the scuffles. I guess what I would say is
6:23
Speaker 1: there's not much peace, and it's impossible to keep the
6:26
Speaker 1: house clean with six children. It's just you walk into
6:29
Speaker 1: the kitchen ten minutes after you've tied it up, and
6:32
Speaker 1: at least two people have already been in there and
6:33
Speaker 1: made a mess and left everything out, and you're constantly
6:36
Speaker 1: having to say, here are the rules. We put things
6:38
Speaker 1: away after we use them. The protein has to go
6:40
Speaker 1: back in the fridge. If the chicken gets lept out
6:42
Speaker 1: or the hand gets lept out, it's not going to
6:44
Speaker 1: be okay for everyone else to eat. It's relentless from that.
6:46
Speaker 2: So that's one of the girls actually just cleaned the
6:49
Speaker 2: kitchen this morning before I came home to make my breakfast,
6:53
Speaker 2: and she walked in a few minutes after we'd started Emily,
6:56
Speaker 2: and she was like, what are you guys doing? I
6:59
Speaker 2: just cleaned the kids. I'm like, oh my gosh, welcome
7:01
Speaker 2: to my line.
7:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's absolutely Here's my second one. My second
7:05
Speaker 1: one is the cost. So that came up in Bronte
7:09
Speaker 1: Gosling's Sydney Morning Herald article, and for me, I look
7:14
Speaker 1: at what families who have fewer numbers of children have
7:17
Speaker 1: been able to do in terms of the holidays, the trips,
7:20
Speaker 1: the leisure of the cafes, and I know it's not
7:22
Speaker 1: for everybody. Everyone's in different circumstances. Generally speaking, though, having
7:27
Speaker 1: six children just means that you are limited in what
7:31
Speaker 1: you can do. You want to go on a holiday,
7:34
Speaker 1: You've got to rent a bigger car, which costs more money.
7:37
Speaker 1: You've got to rent two rooms minimum. Sometimes we've had
7:40
Speaker 1: to get three rooms. We didn't really start having family
7:43
Speaker 1: holidays until, oh until I was well into my forties
7:46
Speaker 1: and our eldest daughter had all but all but moved
7:49
Speaker 1: out of home because we just couldn't afford it. In
7:51
Speaker 1: those early years, it was literally impossible buying a house
7:55
Speaker 1: that's big enough to hold your entire family. We live
7:58
Speaker 1: in a tiny three bedroom home on the Sunshine Coast
8:02
Speaker 1: because that's all we could afford. And we bought the
8:05
Speaker 1: home five years earlier, maybe maybe eight years earlier than
8:08
Speaker 1: we should have, known that the kids were slowly going
8:09
Speaker 1: to leave the house and eventually it would be the
8:11
Speaker 1: right size for us. But we're crammed into this house.
8:15
Speaker 1: It is. It is so tight.
8:17
Speaker 2: Well, that's just because all the bikes you have.
8:19
Speaker 1: The extracurricular activities cost a lot of money. And when
8:23
Speaker 1: you've got that many kids. You've really got to be
8:26
Speaker 1: tight on the extracurriculars. The kids can't do whatever they want.
8:28
Speaker 2: I remember when the kids were younger and we had
8:32
Speaker 2: this grand plan when we had our first couple of
8:35
Speaker 2: children that they could do two extracurriculars, and I thought
8:40
Speaker 2: that that was a really smart idea until we ended
8:43
Speaker 2: up with six and we had six times too.
8:47
Speaker 1: And we're trying to say, no, if your sister is
8:48
Speaker 1: going to be doing this activity, you just need to
8:50
Speaker 1: do it as well.
8:50
Speaker 2: And they're like, you're all doing swimming, that's one curricular.
8:54
Speaker 1: We're all going to go to piano at the same time,
8:55
Speaker 1: going to go to a piano class for everybody. It's
8:58
Speaker 1: none of this individual tutoring stuff. A lot so expensive,
9:03
Speaker 1: so we've had to find ways to economize, whether it
9:05
Speaker 1: was with food, or whether it was buying old cars
9:09
Speaker 1: or going on holidays that were cheap, as in, we're staying.
9:13
Speaker 2: With the laws, we're going in your parents' place on
9:16
Speaker 2: my parents' place.
9:17
Speaker 1: Because we just couldn't afford to do it all. It's
9:20
Speaker 1: just it's really expensive to have a big family. Having
9:23
Speaker 1: said that, I would never want money to be the
9:27
Speaker 1: decision that we didn't have a larger family, which is why,
9:30
Speaker 1: even though we didn't have the money, we had the
9:32
Speaker 1: kids because that was always got it. It had to
9:35
Speaker 1: be the priority.
9:36
Speaker 2: I remember when we were thinking about having baby number six.
9:39
Speaker 2: My excuse that I gave to you was there was
9:40
Speaker 2: one more seat.
9:42
Speaker 1: So we had one of them. Back when they made
9:44
Speaker 1: Pratos with eight seats, we had an old Prato and
9:47
Speaker 1: there was one fair seats, Like, well we might as
9:49
Speaker 1: well fill it after break. Oh no, no, there's there's
9:52
Speaker 1: there's one third one. We're out of time. I'm just
9:54
Speaker 1: going to do it in like fifteen seconds. Time management.
9:57
Speaker 1: Do I even need to elaborate When you've got that
9:59
Speaker 1: many kids in that many directions and you've got your
10:01
Speaker 1: own stuff to do as well, It's just it's a
10:04
Speaker 1: lot cleaning, cooking, extracurrector activities, school. What have I missed?
10:09
Speaker 2: Well, you've missed because you had your list, but you
10:11
Speaker 2: haven't given me any time for mine.
10:14
Speaker 1: My bad. Okay, what else have you got on the list?
10:15
Speaker 1: That are other challenges? But you said this has to
10:17
Speaker 1: be hopeful. It started to feel a little bit hopeless.
10:20
Speaker 2: The physical exertion and exhaustion, yeah is so real.
10:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just tiring.
10:29
Speaker 2: It's very tiring, right, and for me, Sorry, I.
10:33
Speaker 1: Can I sound a little bit one upsman here on
10:35
Speaker 1: this before we talk about you as a mum. Just
10:38
Speaker 1: generally speaking, I've had conversations with our friends and this
10:41
Speaker 1: is going to sound terrible from the parenting expert who's
10:42
Speaker 1: doing the podcast to help families to be happy. So
10:45
Speaker 1: I've got to apologize before i even say it. But
10:47
Speaker 1: I'm just going to say it anyway. As a parent
10:48
Speaker 1: of six, when I'm talking to somebody who's got one
10:50
Speaker 1: or two kids, they say, oh my goodness, it's so exhausting.
10:53
Speaker 1: I'm like, tell me about it, tell me how hard
10:55
Speaker 1: it is, because I'm dying with my six kids. I'm
10:59
Speaker 1: so so sorry that I've just offended almost everybody. I
11:02
Speaker 1: let you look at the stats. I've just defended our
11:04
Speaker 1: entire listener base. But but people do look at us
11:06
Speaker 1: and say it's a lot like how do you do it?
11:08
Speaker 1: Because they're juggling one, two, or three kids and going,
11:11
Speaker 1: holy smokes, this is chaos. This is so energetically emotionally draining.
11:17
Speaker 2: Well, that was the last thing I was going to say,
11:19
Speaker 2: just the emotional drain that it puts on each of us,
11:24
Speaker 2: and sometimes the strain that it actually has created in
11:27
Speaker 2: our relationship as a husband and wife, sometimes not being
11:30
Speaker 2: on the same page, sometimes just the pure like stress
11:35
Speaker 2: and agony of trying to grapple with decisions that we're
11:40
Speaker 2: trying to make for our children, or with our children,
11:44
Speaker 2: or the decisions that they're making on their own that
11:47
Speaker 2: are just.
11:48
Speaker 1: Causing a And when you have six children, it means
11:52
Speaker 1: that you have to go through this six times. You've
11:55
Speaker 1: got to go through puberty six times. You've got to
11:57
Speaker 1: go through the first breakup six times. You've got to
11:58
Speaker 1: go through like just keeps on happening. And we look
12:01
Speaker 1: at each other, We're like, do we really have to
12:02
Speaker 1: do this again and again after the break given that
12:06
Speaker 1: we've already done twenty eight years of full time, full
12:11
Speaker 1: tilt parenting and we still have at least another six
12:13
Speaker 1: to go until we have no more technical dependence. We're
12:17
Speaker 1: going to talk about the benefits of putting ourselves through
12:19
Speaker 1: this stay witness. Okay, Kylie, this is going to be
12:29
Speaker 1: the quickest second part of our podcasts ever.
12:31
Speaker 2: Terrible, and put all the focus and energy on all
12:34
Speaker 2: the problems, and then you're going to skim over the benefits,
12:37
Speaker 2: but the benefits they have no benefits.
12:39
Speaker 1: The benefits are so great and so powerful that as
12:43
Speaker 1: soon as we say them, everyone say that's right, and
12:45
Speaker 1: we'll just sit on our hearts and everyone's gonna be like, oh, yeah,
12:49
Speaker 1: I should have more kids. This is not actually a
12:51
Speaker 1: podcast to convince people to have more kids, although we
12:54
Speaker 1: do kind of need to have more kids. And my
12:56
Speaker 1: number one benefit energy, Like that was my number one drawback,
13:00
Speaker 1: but it's also the number one benefit. I love it
13:03
Speaker 1: when we get a little bit of peace and quiet,
13:04
Speaker 1: but after a little while of peace and quiet, I
13:07
Speaker 1: start to miss it. I really miss the energy. I
13:10
Speaker 1: miss the buzz. I miss the kids barging into the
13:12
Speaker 1: room and saying, hey, can I talk to you.
13:14
Speaker 2: It goes both ways, though, because once there's a lot
13:16
Speaker 2: of energy, you miss the.
13:17
Speaker 1: Piece very very much. But it is one of my
13:20
Speaker 1: favorite things.
13:21
Speaker 2: When we come together on a Sunday night and the
13:24
Speaker 2: whole family comes together, it goes from just kind of
13:28
Speaker 2: you know, average conversation and all of a sudden, there's
13:31
Speaker 2: chaos isn't the right word. There's just there's beautiful energy,
13:34
Speaker 2: there's synergy, there's there's you know, this absolute joy of
13:39
Speaker 2: coming together and being with each other, sharing good food
13:42
Speaker 2: and telling stories and laughing and singing, and it's our
13:46
Speaker 2: favorite art of the week.
13:47
Speaker 1: There's so much going on and it feels so good.
13:50
Speaker 1: It's also really nice when they all go home, the
13:51
Speaker 1: kitchen's clean, we fall into bed. It feels really fulfilling.
13:54
Speaker 1: And so that kind of brings me to my second
13:57
Speaker 1: major benefit, and that is the richness of the multiple relationships,
14:02
Speaker 1: the richness of the belonging, the meaning and the purpose,
14:08
Speaker 1: like the connection. There's always somebody that you can sit
14:11
Speaker 1: with and either be seen by.
14:15
Speaker 2: It's hard to feel lonely.
14:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, it really really is.
14:18
Speaker 2: I remember when we were looking at buying a house
14:20
Speaker 2: here on the Sunshine Coast. We'd come from a very
14:22
Speaker 2: big house and it was a very open plan, spread
14:27
Speaker 2: out floor plan. And when I sat down with the
14:30
Speaker 2: kids and I just said, okay, so we're looking at
14:32
Speaker 2: buying a new house.
14:33
Speaker 1: And you were staying in an airbnb near the beach
14:36
Speaker 1: that was like it was a little unit. It was
14:39
Speaker 1: a tiny unit, and I would come stay on the weekends,
14:41
Speaker 1: but like we had the whole family crammed into this
14:44
Speaker 1: winy little unit.
14:46
Speaker 2: It was so tight, and I just I said to them,
14:49
Speaker 2: I said, what are the things that you loved about
14:51
Speaker 2: our old house? And they told me all the things
14:52
Speaker 2: that they loved, and I said, what is one thing
14:55
Speaker 2: that you would change if you could decide where we
14:58
Speaker 2: lived and what that looked like, what it felt like,
15:00
Speaker 2: what would it be And they just said, we really
15:02
Speaker 2: loved our old house. We loved that we all had
15:05
Speaker 2: our own space. But you know what, it was really
15:08
Speaker 2: easy for us to disappear. They said. The one thing
15:11
Speaker 2: we would change is we want to be closer, especially
15:13
Speaker 2: closer to us, because we had our own wings as such.
15:16
Speaker 2: And I thought that that was really.
15:19
Speaker 1: Ironically, since we moved into this small house that they
15:22
Speaker 1: requested that we have so that we could all be close,
15:24
Speaker 1: they started disappearing into their rooms again. It's just that
15:27
Speaker 1: now a couple of them have to share because the
15:28
Speaker 1: house all. But yeah, they really crave that connection, that belonging,
15:34
Speaker 1: that closeness. Quick point, and I'll make it very quickly,
15:38
Speaker 1: because time is getting the better of this. Honey. We've
15:41
Speaker 1: got two children now, have moved out marriage and moved out.
15:44
Speaker 1: They're absolutely not coming back, right but our next two
15:48
Speaker 1: are going to be gone in the next two months.
15:52
Speaker 1: We have children three and four. One of them's heading
15:54
Speaker 1: to the US and staying there as long as her
15:58
Speaker 1: visa allows, and then steady out and then going back
16:00
Speaker 1: if she can get back in, Like she's working out
16:02
Speaker 1: her life and plans to live over there if she
16:04
Speaker 1: can make that happen. And we've got another daughter who's
16:07
Speaker 1: about to go away for eighteen months to do service work.
16:11
Speaker 1: And so I'm already I'm already starting to crave the
16:16
Speaker 1: connection that we're about to lose. It's just so beautiful
16:19
Speaker 1: to have that many people in the house. I don't
16:21
Speaker 1: know how I'm going to handle only having our sixteen
16:24
Speaker 1: year old and our twelve year old in the house.
16:26
Speaker 2: Well, if we put this all together, When I think
16:29
Speaker 2: about the difference between having, you know, one or two
16:33
Speaker 2: children or having a large family, the thing that stands
16:38
Speaker 2: out to be the most is that the chances of
16:41
Speaker 2: someone being willing to take care of you and you're
16:43
Speaker 2: old is pretty good.
16:46
Speaker 1: And the research shows that that does happen, especially.
16:49
Speaker 2: To say six daughters.
16:51
Speaker 1: You're going to be fine.
16:52
Speaker 2: You are going to be fine.
16:53
Speaker 1: All right. Our time is up. Fertility rate, that's the
16:56
Speaker 1: big story, And I just wanted to highlight it on
16:58
Speaker 1: the pod today, but he wanted to highlight and be
17:01
Speaker 1: clear about having a big family is hard, and especially
17:04
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty six, it really is hard. Wouldn't change
17:07
Speaker 1: it for the world.
17:08
Speaker 2: I know we have to finish, But you tell the
17:10
Speaker 2: story about the gold rush and a young man selling
17:14
Speaker 2: up everything and heading off to make his fortunes, and
17:17
Speaker 2: after he had spent every last cent, and he just
17:20
Speaker 2: had this big pile of rocks.
17:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, next to show from that the panning for gold,
17:25
Speaker 1: just a pile of rocks.
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Speaker 2: An old prospector kind of walked past her and says,
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Speaker 2: looks like you've got a big pile of rocks there.
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Speaker 2: And the guy says, I've wasted everything. I've lost it all.
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Speaker 2: I've got nothing to show for my time and energy.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, I want nuggets like you've got in your pouch.
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Speaker 1: She was really upset that he didn't find a single nugget.
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Speaker 2: And he's like this pouch and he opens up the
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Speaker 2: pouch and inside the pouch is just these tiny flecks
17:47
Speaker 2: of gold, and he said, you're just looking in the
17:49
Speaker 2: wrong place. And so he takes a couple of the
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Speaker 2: rocks that this young man is collected, and he hits
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Speaker 2: them together and they crack open and inside is these
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Speaker 2: like just tiny flecks. And he said, it's not the
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Speaker 2: nuggets that make you rich, it's the slow, steady accumulation
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Speaker 2: of all of these little gold flecks. And I think
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Speaker 2: about family life and most days are chaotic, most days
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Speaker 2: are hard like honestly, it's hard work, exhaustion, and we
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Speaker 2: go to bed each night and look at each other
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Speaker 2: and goes it really worth it. But we've collected over
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Speaker 2: time these tiny flecks of gold, these moments together that
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Speaker 2: have just forged us in such a rich tapestry of
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Speaker 2: life together. And I can't imagine doing life without these kids.
18:36
Speaker 1: Our pouches are full. Life is so rich. The Happy
18:40
Speaker 1: Family's podcast is produced by Justin Ruland from Bridge Media.
18:43
Speaker 1: Mimmahammonds provides our additional support tomorrow on the pod dealing
18:47
Speaker 1: with tragedy in a school environment. Plus later this week
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Speaker 1: we talk to Australia's number one radio announcer, Christian o'cole
18:55
Speaker 1: about his new book and how it can help us
18:57
Speaker 1: to blow up the scripts that aren't working in our family.
19:01
Speaker 1: Stay with us this week on the Happy Families podcast.
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Speaker 2: M