Latest / She's On The Money / Secret Money Lives of Mormon Wives
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Hello.
- 0:01Speaker 2: My name's Santasha Nabananga Bamblet. I'm a proud Order Order
- 0:05Speaker 2: Kerney Whaltbury and a waddery woman. And before we get
- 0:09Speaker 2: started on She's on the Money podcast, I would like
- 0:11Speaker 2: to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land of which
- 0:14Speaker 2: this podcast is recorded on a wondery country, acknowledging the elders,
- 0:19Speaker 2: the ancestors and the next generation coming through. As this
- 0:23Speaker 2: podcast is about connecting, empowering, knowledge sharing and the storytelling
- 0:28Speaker 2: of you to make a difference for today and lasting
- 0:31Speaker 2: impact for tomorrow.
- 0:33Speaker 1: Let's get into it.
- 0:34Speaker 3: She's on the Money, She's on the Money.
- 0:57Speaker 4: Hello, and welcome to She's on the Money the pod.
- 1:00Speaker 4: We are some millennials who are ready to own their
- 1:02Speaker 4: financial future. I'm your host, Victoria Devine, and I want
- 1:05Speaker 4: you to put your hand up. Who else has been
- 1:08Speaker 4: binge watching The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. I feel
- 1:11Speaker 4: like our entire team is absolutely hooked, and my husband
- 1:14Speaker 4: as well. And while the drama is very juicy, I
- 1:17Speaker 4: decided to do a little solo Saturday episode because there's
- 1:20Speaker 4: actually something a little bit deeper happening here beneath literally
- 1:25Speaker 4: or the drama and chaos. What they're really talking about
- 1:28Speaker 4: is financial independence, the shifting gender roles, and I guess
- 1:32Speaker 4: this wild collision of faith and money which I cannot
- 1:35Speaker 4: seem to look away from. To understand the dynamic I
- 1:39Speaker 4: suppose at play in the secret lives of Mormon wives,
- 1:42Speaker 4: we need to actually first look at Mormon culture's deep
- 1:45Speaker 4: rooted gender roles, which to me are wild given I
- 1:48Speaker 4: got the privilege of growing up in Australia. But in
- 1:51Speaker 4: the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints, more
- 1:54Speaker 4: often than not referred to as the Mormon Church, family
- 1:58Speaker 4: life is very central to religious teachings, which sounds nice, right, Men.
- 2:03Speaker 1: They're the providers. This is where it starts to slip downhill.
- 2:05Speaker 4: They're the ones who work outside of the home to
- 2:07Speaker 4: support their families, and it is expected that women manage
- 2:11Speaker 4: the household, they raise the children, and they support their
- 2:13Speaker 4: husbands spiritually and emotionally. When I looked it up, now,
- 2:18Speaker 4: this whole structure actually comes from deeply ingrained religious teachings
- 2:22Speaker 4: that really prioritize these people having mass amounts of children.
- 2:27Speaker 4: The idea in the Mormon Church is actually that the
- 2:30Speaker 4: husband and the wife are complimentary, but totally different. Their
- 2:34Speaker 4: jobs aren't the same. Women are seen to be nurturious.
- 2:37Speaker 4: They are focused on raising the children and creating this
- 2:40Speaker 4: like stable, faith filled home, while men their job is
- 2:44Speaker 4: to take on the financial responsibility and provide through work
- 2:47Speaker 4: outside of the home. And this division allows women to
- 2:51Speaker 4: just focus entirely in their minds, entirely on the family,
- 2:55Speaker 4: and then their husbands are expected to just make sure
- 2:58Speaker 4: that the financial will being of their family is tip
- 3:00Speaker 4: top right. So, in Mormon culture, it's really normal for
- 3:04Speaker 4: young women to be encouraged to marry young, which I mean,
- 3:08Speaker 4: we might think that that is not that normal, but
- 3:11Speaker 4: for them, it is very normal, and some even actually
- 3:14Speaker 4: get married before they even finish school or they even
- 3:17Speaker 4: think about starting a career. And on the show Demi,
- 3:20Speaker 4: she's one of I guess the more progressive voices on
- 3:23Speaker 4: the show. She's said, it's a theme within our church
- 3:25Speaker 4: and kind of a problem. Everyone's getting married before their
- 3:28Speaker 4: brain even develops, and that really resonated with me. The
- 3:31Speaker 4: expectation for them is to actually become full time mothers,
- 3:35Speaker 4: with some even homeschooling their kids. And while I guess
- 3:38Speaker 4: many women and me too, appreciate the foundation of love
- 3:42Speaker 4: and family and service. Mikayla cuts in and she said,
- 3:46Speaker 4: for a lot of us, following the rules of the
- 3:48Speaker 4: Mormon religion is just impossible. So enter the conversation around Mumtok,
- 3:54Speaker 4: which is where the secret lives of the Mormon wives
- 3:57Speaker 4: has actually come from.
- 3:58Speaker 1: So it's a community that.
- 3:59Speaker 4: Started out as what they call a supportive sisterhood of
- 4:03Speaker 4: Mormon mums that are sharing their lives online, bonding over
- 4:06Speaker 4: their faith and family and all of the chaos that
- 4:09Speaker 4: is motherhood, which sounds really wholesome. But as the group's
- 4:13Speaker 4: popularity really exploded, so did the drama. And I mean
- 4:16Speaker 4: that's why I like watching. And then after their soft
- 4:19Speaker 4: swinging scandal, which happened all over TikTok, their very close
- 4:24Speaker 4: bonds were completely fractured, and I mean I was definitely
- 4:27Speaker 4: watching on personal choices of each person in this mumtop
- 4:31Speaker 4: club were clashing and the sisterhood was completely crumbling under
- 4:35Speaker 4: this pressure. And then behind the glossy Instagram feeds that
- 4:38Speaker 4: they all post, these women were actually doing some really
- 4:42Speaker 4: cool stuff. They were building their own financial independence because
- 4:46Speaker 4: they'd basically become influencers.
- 4:48Speaker 1: They were getting these massive influencer deals.
- 4:50Speaker 4: And while they externally projected being perfect homemakers. That's how
- 4:55Speaker 4: they were making money, because they were making bank through
- 4:57Speaker 4: influencer deals, people reaching out to them saying, hey, your
- 5:00Speaker 4: platform is really great. We'd love to send you this
- 5:03Speaker 4: product to feature, and we'll pay you a nice amount
- 5:05Speaker 4: of money to do it. And that essentially started flipping
- 5:09Speaker 4: the script on this traditional Mormon reliance on the husband
- 5:13Speaker 4: for financial support, which is what I started to see
- 5:16Speaker 4: and go, hold on, this is kind of cool. This
- 5:19Speaker 4: is probably making the Mormon men a little bit uncomfortable, which,
- 5:23Speaker 4: as you know, I love to make men uncomfortable. But
- 5:26Speaker 4: who knew that dancing on TikTok could challenge I guess
- 5:30Speaker 4: centuries of tradition. These women, they were turning their stay
- 5:34Speaker 4: at home mum rolls into stay at home mogul roles,
- 5:36Speaker 4: and I thought that was really cool. And I guess
- 5:39Speaker 4: what started as a hobby of sharing their really cute
- 5:42Speaker 4: family moments online and doing some dances and having some
- 5:45Speaker 4: fun and like supporting each other as women because that's
- 5:48Speaker 4: what they needed, actually turned into a very serious business
- 5:52Speaker 4: and the influence and I guess the income that these
- 5:54Speaker 4: women were able to pull in from their videos and
- 5:57Speaker 4: their brand deals, and you know, being influencers wasn't just
- 6:00Speaker 4: having some extra play money or some extra cash. It actually,
- 6:04Speaker 4: if you look at these families, became their primary source
- 6:08Speaker 4: of income, which is kind of scary if you think
- 6:11Speaker 4: about it. In one scene, when they were all together
- 6:13Speaker 4: in a group, one of the women asked who here
- 6:16Speaker 4: is the breadwinner in their family and obviously hit record
- 6:19Speaker 4: then and surprisingly they all raised their hands, so they
- 6:22Speaker 4: were out earning their husbands.
- 6:25Speaker 1: And for me, it was a.
- 6:26Speaker 4: Powerful moment because it showed how much that dynamic had shifted.
- 6:30Speaker 4: These women aren't just managing households, They're managing businesses and households.
- 6:35Speaker 4: And what's wild, I guess, is that what has traditionally
- 6:38Speaker 4: been expected of them, which is being the stay at
- 6:40Speaker 4: home mums and being you know, the homemaker, has now
- 6:43Speaker 4: become the biggest key factor in them building their own
- 6:47Speaker 4: financial freedom, which I guess nobody saw coming, right and
- 6:51Speaker 4: I guess my emphasis here right now is on that
- 6:53Speaker 4: freedom topic. I'm going to go to a really quick
- 6:56Speaker 4: break on the flip side. We're going to get into
- 6:58Speaker 4: some juicy information about a few of the people from
- 7:02Speaker 4: the Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. So don't go anywhere.
- 7:09Speaker 4: All right, we are back, and I want to dive
- 7:11Speaker 4: into talking about a few of the what will we
- 7:13Speaker 4: call them the characters on the show. So in one
- 7:16Speaker 4: episode they talk about Layla's divorce. I'm strapped in right,
- 7:20Speaker 4: like anybody mentions divorce. I need to know who did
- 7:22Speaker 4: what why when we're out, Like, I'm just pervy at
- 7:25Speaker 4: my core, right, It's why we do money diaries. But
- 7:27Speaker 4: within the Mormon faith, there's always the pressure to stay
- 7:31Speaker 4: in the marriage and just make it work. Like there's
- 7:34Speaker 4: so much shame often around getting a divorce, and now
- 7:38Speaker 4: imagine being a stay at home mum who has no income,
- 7:41Speaker 4: leaving would actually feel impossible. And we see lots of
- 7:44Speaker 4: people in our community going through this where you know,
- 7:47Speaker 4: they might reach out to she's on the money, and
- 7:48Speaker 4: they say the like I would love to leave my husband,
- 7:51Speaker 4: but I just don't have the means to do so.
- 7:53Speaker 4: And we can create a plan. If you're in that situation,
- 7:55Speaker 4: we can absolutely create a plan and make that work
- 7:58Speaker 4: for you, but it can feel absolutely unachievable and impossible.
- 8:02Speaker 4: But the big takeaway here is that for these women
- 8:05Speaker 4: and all women, financial freedom changes everything.
- 8:09Speaker 1: It gives you options.
- 8:11Speaker 4: It gives you the ability to choose, It gives you
- 8:12Speaker 4: the ability to decide, and most importantly, it gives you
- 8:16Speaker 4: control over your life. It's one of the reasons why
- 8:18Speaker 4: I'm so wildly passionate about having an emergency fund, irrespective
- 8:24Speaker 4: of whether you are the breadwinner or not. I want
- 8:25Speaker 4: you to have access to your own money so that
- 8:27Speaker 4: if you're ever in a situation that you don't want
- 8:29Speaker 4: to be in, you can get out, whether that's you know,
- 8:32Speaker 4: just getting a cab home after a late night because
- 8:34Speaker 4: you don't feel safe getting the bus, or if it
- 8:37Speaker 4: means leaving a relationship. Like I want women to have
- 8:40Speaker 4: access to their own financial freedom. But on the show,
- 8:44Speaker 4: these women are no longer financially dependent on their husbands,
- 8:48Speaker 4: and that independence shift actually changes the entire power dynamic
- 8:52Speaker 4: in their relationships, which can be a little bit scary
- 8:56Speaker 4: and one of the most fascinating or fascinating to me
- 8:59Speaker 4: dynamics on the show is between Jen and her husband Zach.
- 9:03Speaker 1: So at first it really looks.
- 9:04Speaker 4: Like Jen has married into money and she's doing really
- 9:08Speaker 4: well for herself. And Jen said, like, my mum was
- 9:10Speaker 4: the cleaner at the hospital where Zach's dad was the
- 9:13Speaker 4: surgeon and you just like listen to that and go, Okay,
- 9:16Speaker 4: this feels relatively stereotypical, right, But as the series goes on,
- 9:20Speaker 4: we learned what Zach's family did, and Zach's family gave
- 9:23Speaker 4: him some money to help him get through the period
- 9:26Speaker 4: that he was at medical school, which is a privilege
- 9:28Speaker 4: in itself. But Zach gambled all of that money away.
- 9:31Speaker 4: And now that Jen is working her butt off on
- 9:34Speaker 4: Mumtalk and getting all these influencer deals, she's actually become
- 9:38Speaker 4: the primary bread winner in her family. And it's actually
- 9:40Speaker 4: this power shift that Zach cannot seem to handle. And
- 9:44Speaker 4: on the show, Jen said, and I quote the male
- 9:47Speaker 4: typically being the sole provider within our religion makes our.
- 9:50Speaker 1: Situation a little bit tricky.
- 9:52Speaker 4: So it's not like they don't know this is a thing,
- 9:54Speaker 4: and it causes so much tension in their friend group,
- 9:57Speaker 4: so much tension in their marriage. Like Zach, he just
- 10:00Speaker 4: can't deal with this. But I mean, whose fault is it?
- 10:03Speaker 1: Is it Zach's?
- 10:04Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, you gambled all your money away. That
- 10:06Speaker 4: is not responsible. And there's this moment in the show
- 10:10Speaker 4: which really stuck with me, and it's when he begs
- 10:13Speaker 4: Jen to bankroll his poker game, and she tells him that, Okay,
- 10:17Speaker 4: I'll give you like twenty five hundred dollars and you
- 10:19Speaker 4: better not lose it. And I think it's a really
- 10:21Speaker 4: powerful reminder of how financial independence doesn't just empower women,
- 10:25Speaker 4: it actually challenges the traditional expectations within their marriage, specifically
- 10:30Speaker 4: now that Jen is kind of like leading the household financially,
- 10:33Speaker 4: and you can just tell he's not comfortable having to
- 10:36Speaker 4: ask his wife for money, which obviously we all want
- 10:40Speaker 4: to be able to stand on our own two feet.
- 10:42Speaker 4: But like, there's obviously some gender stuff going on there
- 10:45Speaker 4: that we could look a much deeper into. But things
- 10:48Speaker 4: on the show absolutely blew up. Right, the girls go
- 10:51Speaker 4: to Vegas, or they all go to Vegas, and Jen
- 10:53Speaker 4: ends up at a Chippendale's show, Right, the other girls
- 10:56Speaker 4: decide that that's a really fun thing to do, And
- 10:58Speaker 4: what happens is Jen calls her husband to be like,
- 11:02Speaker 4: by the way, I'm at Chipendale's just being transparent, We're
- 11:04Speaker 4: meant to be having a bit of fun, and Zach
- 11:07Speaker 4: starts literally questioning her character. He says he doesn't want
- 11:10Speaker 4: a wife who would do that. I mean, at the
- 11:12Speaker 4: end of the day, One it wasn't her choice, and
- 11:15Speaker 4: two like your wife is literally telling you why I
- 11:18Speaker 4: don't you trust her? Anyway, that aside, The irony here
- 11:21Speaker 4: is that he actually was out gambling until one thirty am,
- 11:26Speaker 4: which is also a massive no no in their faith,
- 11:28Speaker 4: like they're not meant to gamble. But for me as
- 11:31Speaker 4: an outsider to see him have such a reaction when
- 11:35Speaker 4: he just wheezered his way onto a girl's trip and
- 11:37Speaker 4: then spent all of his time in Vegas gambling away
- 11:41Speaker 4: his money when she was literally out doing her job,
- 11:44Speaker 4: like she was at Chippendale's, yes, which is kind of like,
- 11:47Speaker 4: I don't know, like a Magic Men style show, Right,
- 11:50Speaker 4: She's at Chippendale's, but there's a whole camera crew there,
- 11:53Speaker 4: Like he would have known that a camera crew was
- 11:55Speaker 4: there filming her to make this show?
- 11:57Speaker 1: Like what's she going to do on TV?
- 11:59Speaker 4: Anyway, got lots of thoughts, But for him, it's not
- 12:03Speaker 4: enough that she was fully providing for his family.
- 12:05Speaker 1: She seems to.
- 12:06Speaker 4: Have to also placate his ego as well and put
- 12:09Speaker 4: up with the disrespect that he has for not only
- 12:12Speaker 4: her but Mum Talk, which is their sole income at
- 12:15Speaker 4: the moment.
- 12:16Speaker 1: For his family.
- 12:17Speaker 4: It's as though his sinning's okay, but like not hers,
- 12:20Speaker 4: even though she wasn't. The tension between I guess the
- 12:23Speaker 4: mum talk personas if we zoom out a little bit
- 12:26Speaker 4: and their real lives, as I said before, adds so
- 12:29Speaker 4: much drama to the show and I love it. But
- 12:32Speaker 4: while they uphold the values and faith and family online,
- 12:37Speaker 4: they're also navigating some pretty spicy personal scandals, like the
- 12:40Speaker 4: swinging controversy. I don't know if you guys are on TikTok,
- 12:43Speaker 4: I'm chronically online, so like, I was all across the
- 12:45Speaker 4: swinging controversy, and I'm sure you can do a little
- 12:48Speaker 4: bit of a deep dive if you're interested. But they
- 12:49Speaker 4: were also dealing with I guess, contradictions of promoting products
- 12:54Speaker 4: that don't necessarily align with their religious values, right, So
- 12:57Speaker 4: this was particularly poignant when Whitney was actually and Whitney's
- 13:02Speaker 4: a whole different story if we want to talk about her,
- 13:05Speaker 4: she deserves her own show. But Whitney was offered I
- 13:08Speaker 4: think it was twenty thousand dollars to post a single
- 13:10Speaker 4: photo promoting a sex toy on Instagram, which for some
- 13:13Speaker 4: people they'd be like great, Nor is that really aligns
- 13:15Speaker 4: with my brand.
- 13:16Speaker 1: But while that deal sounds.
- 13:18Speaker 4: Quite straightforward, all she had to do was post I
- 13:21Speaker 4: guess a photo and a caption. It stirred up a
- 13:23Speaker 4: really big internal conflict for her because she was like, well,
- 13:26Speaker 4: this is kind of against my faith. Like I grew
- 13:28Speaker 4: up in a really conservative Mormon family where topics like
- 13:31Speaker 4: sex are very taboo. It's not something that we're going
- 13:34Speaker 4: to talk to. And you can see like this internal
- 13:36Speaker 4: and external struggle where Whitney is grappling with the potential
- 13:40Speaker 4: backlash from her community and her family, and she even
- 13:44Speaker 4: asks them like what should I do? And ultimately they're like, ah,
- 13:47Speaker 4: that just feels like it's a little bit against your
- 13:50Speaker 4: values and what you do. But I mean, she takes
- 13:52Speaker 4: the cash, but it raises for me a deeper question
- 13:55Speaker 4: how does she balance her faith with the financial opportunities
- 13:58Speaker 4: that are coming from her influence a career, Like how
- 14:01Speaker 4: is she going to stay true to herself when she's
- 14:04Speaker 4: never actually managed finances before. On the show, she sought
- 14:09Speaker 4: advice from her mum and her sister and I guess, well,
- 14:11Speaker 4: Whitney was trying to justify it in a way you
- 14:13Speaker 4: could just tell, right she's justifying it. She's like, it
- 14:15Speaker 4: could be like so empowering, like it's a huge financial opportunity,
- 14:19Speaker 4: but just trying to frame it in a way that
- 14:21Speaker 4: convinces her mum and her sister. Her mum and her
- 14:23Speaker 4: sister are not convinced. Her sister actually questions if it
- 14:25Speaker 4: matches her platform and then points out that Whitney usually
- 14:28Speaker 4: promotes like really family friendly content, so you do really
- 14:31Speaker 4: want that? And I guess this conversation opens up a
- 14:34Speaker 4: much wider issue where Whitney reflects on how her mum
- 14:37Speaker 4: didn't teach her anything about these topics growing up, and
- 14:40Speaker 4: how she actually wants to use her platform to break
- 14:43Speaker 4: down these taboos, which is obviously not going to make
- 14:45Speaker 4: her mom very happy, which adds another layer of what
- 14:48Speaker 4: I would call internal conflict about blending business with faith
- 14:53Speaker 4: and how to stay authentic to who you are. But
- 14:55Speaker 4: the real empowerment here, and I guess everything put aside,
- 14:58Speaker 4: I find Whitney relatively problematic, but I guess the real
- 15:01Speaker 4: empowerment here is that Whitney, in this moment, has the
- 15:05Speaker 4: ability to choose, so whether she says yes or no
- 15:07Speaker 4: to this opportunity or other opportunities like that, the power
- 15:11Speaker 4: is entirely in her hands and financial independence is what
- 15:15Speaker 4: is giving her that freedom. And it's just kind of sexy.
- 15:18Speaker 4: So I guess what's the takeaway. Why did I want
- 15:21Speaker 4: to talk about this today? Well, I think the biggest
- 15:23Speaker 4: lesson when it comes to financial independence is financial independence opens.
- 15:29Speaker 1: Doors for you.
- 15:29Speaker 4: Whether you are navigating faith or family or personal relationships,
- 15:34Speaker 4: having control over your money means that you are able
- 15:37Speaker 4: to control your own life. The women on the Secret
- 15:40Speaker 4: Lives of Mormon Wives, they're redefining their roles at the moment.
- 15:44Speaker 4: I mean, they've already done it, but we get to
- 15:46Speaker 4: go along for the ride, and it is proof that
- 15:49Speaker 4: you can too. So whether it is leaving a really
- 15:52Speaker 4: difficult situation like a business or maybe simply having the
- 15:56Speaker 4: power to say no to someone, money is going to
- 15:58Speaker 4: give you the flexibility to live life on your own terms.
- 16:03Speaker 4: And I guess in Australia we are not quite mum
- 16:07Speaker 4: talk and do what I don't want to be. I'm
- 16:09Speaker 4: not very good at dancing. I think you would pay
- 16:11Speaker 4: not to see that. We don't have dancing, but we
- 16:14Speaker 4: do have a very beautiful community of our own, supportive
- 16:18Speaker 4: financially savvy women and You can join us if you
- 16:22Speaker 4: haven't already searched Sheese on the Money on Facebook. We
- 16:26Speaker 4: share tips and we share tricks and all of the
- 16:28Speaker 4: good stuff to help you crush your own money goals,
- 16:30Speaker 4: to create your own level of financial independence, irrespective of
- 16:33Speaker 4: where you're starting from, and we are your own squad
- 16:37Speaker 4: cheering on for you. And I wanted to talk about
- 16:39Speaker 4: that because I don't think that when we have been
- 16:41Speaker 4: watching the Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, you really dig
- 16:44Speaker 4: deep into the money side of things, like obviously you're
- 16:48Speaker 4: like fire out like twenty thousand dollars to post about
- 16:50Speaker 4: a sex toy.
- 16:50Speaker 1: Absolutely I would do that, but.
- 16:53Speaker 4: These money conversations to run so deep, like money controls
- 16:57Speaker 4: the entire world, Like you could probably break down so
- 17:00Speaker 4: any Netflix series or so many Apple series on how
- 17:03Speaker 4: money controls the narrative of everything.
- 17:06Speaker 1: And I think that that's the learning here. So I'm
- 17:09Speaker 1: going to go.
- 17:09Speaker 4: I hope you have the best week ever and I
- 17:12Speaker 4: will see you writing early on Monday for a money Darry,
- 17:14Speaker 4: have a good weekend.
- 17:15Speaker 1: My loves.
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