Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / #677 Mia Freedman - From Manager to Consultant

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#677 Mia Freedman - From Manager to Consultant · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

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  Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families Podcast. It's the podcast for the
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  Speaker 1: time poor parent who just wants answers.
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  Speaker 2: Now.
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  Speaker 1: Every now and again, on the Happy Families Podcast, we
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  Speaker 1: get to talk to fascinating people with fabulous ideas. A
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  Speaker 1: little while ago, we did a Bringing Up Boys summit.
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  Speaker 1: One of my guests on the summit was the high
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  Speaker 1: profile Mea Friedman, and Mea joined me for around about
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  Speaker 1: a forty five to fifty minute conversation talking about all
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  Speaker 1: things boys, raising boys. She's raised one to adulthood and
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  Speaker 1: the second one is well and truly on his way
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  Speaker 1: to adulthood. Now. I asked, Mia, what is masculinity like?
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  Speaker 1: How would you, as somebody who works in an area
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  Speaker 1: where these conversations are being had all the time, how
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  Speaker 1: would mea Friedman define masculinity and what is a masculine
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  Speaker 1: boy or man to you?
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  Speaker 2: I think the gender roles of prisons, whether they're prisons
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  Speaker 2: for women, they're also prisons for men. And I think
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  Speaker 2: we've done an enormously successful job of widening what it
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  Speaker 2: means to be a girl or a woman over the
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  Speaker 2: last few generations. But I heard Glorious Dinah once say
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  Speaker 2: that you know their prisons for men as well. Even
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  Speaker 2: if the man's prison has like wall to wall carpet
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  Speaker 2: and someone to bring your coffee, it's still a prison
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  Speaker 2: in terms of its constraining to think that our lives,
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  Speaker 2: pretty as women are pretty unrecognizable from the lives of
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  Speaker 2: our grandmothers and great grandmothers. Right like, neither of my
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  Speaker 2: great grandmothers worked outside the home, neither of them could drive,
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  Speaker 2: they could vote, but my great grandmothers probably couldn't. And
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  Speaker 2: yet our partners' lives, if they're male, men's lives are
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  Speaker 2: pretty similar to their fathers, their grandfathers, their great grandfathers,
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  Speaker 2: their great great grandfathers, in that they're probably the you know,
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  Speaker 2: main bread rinners in most in most households, they probably
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  Speaker 2: don't do have a whole lot to do with the children,
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  Speaker 2: although I do think that's changing. They certainly wouldn't have
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  Speaker 2: taken parental leave or you know, likely that any of
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  Speaker 2: that would happen. So I think that while our definition
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  Speaker 2: of what it means to be a woman or what
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  Speaker 2: it means to be a good mother has changed a lot,
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  Speaker 2: I don't think it's changed nearly enough for men, And
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  Speaker 2: I think that we have to make that change for
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  Speaker 2: our sons in showing them that boys can cry, boys
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  Speaker 2: can wear dresses, boys can do all manner of things.
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  Speaker 2: And I'll quote my friend Holly wayIn Wright, who I
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  Speaker 2: work with here at Mammea, and she said that she
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  Speaker 2: realized she'd gone a bit far when her son said
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  Speaker 2: to her. She's got a daughter and a son. Her
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  Speaker 2: son said to her, when I grow up, I want
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  Speaker 2: to be a girl. And she's like, Holly's like, oh
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  Speaker 2: that's interesting, Billy, how come? And he said, well, because
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  Speaker 2: girls can do anything. And that's when she thought, oh, okay,
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  Speaker 2: I might have overcorrected, Like I've been so focused on
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  Speaker 2: telling my daughter she can be anything and do anything
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  Speaker 2: that I haven't given that same message to my son.
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  Speaker 1: Do you think that that's a message that our boys
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  Speaker 1: are getting that girls can do anything, or that boys
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  Speaker 1: are somehow deficient. I mean, when you look at the research,
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  Speaker 1: boys underperform at school relative to girls. Boys matriculate to
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  Speaker 1: and through university at lower levels to girls. Boys are
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  Speaker 1: much more likely to be overrepresented on detention or writing
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  Speaker 1: lines or getting in trouble at school.
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  Speaker 2: They're more likely.
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  Speaker 1: Overrepresented with drug and alcohol abuse, with violent acts in prisons.
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  Speaker 1: What's the mood. Do you think I mean, I talk
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  Speaker 1: to parents all the time who are saying, I'm worried
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  Speaker 1: about my boys, But do you think that boys are
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  Speaker 1: actually saying, Yeah, girls can do anything and boys just
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  Speaker 1: aren't as good. Do you think that there's a even
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  Speaker 1: though boys have always had all these freedoms, that there's
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  Speaker 1: some sort of mismatch here between freedom and actually being
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  Speaker 1: able to do what that freedom should allow.
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  Speaker 2: I think that because we are living through a big
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  Speaker 2: correction in a lot of ways in terms of civil rights,
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  Speaker 2: in terms of gender equality, the Meat Too movement, conversations
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  Speaker 2: about consent and sexual assault, I think that boys who
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  Speaker 2: are watching listening to all of these conversations happening around
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  Speaker 2: them could be getting the idea that they're really bad,
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  Speaker 2: that they are the cause of all the problems in
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  Speaker 2: the world, that they are the cause of all the
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  Speaker 2: problems for women, and that women don't like boys or
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  Speaker 2: men very much. And I'm not even talking about strident feminism,
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  Speaker 2: because feminism is not, and certainly never has been to
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  Speaker 2: me in my household, about girls are better than boys.
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  Speaker 2: It's more just there's always been an inequality, and we've
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  Speaker 2: tried to redress that by building girls up. But I
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  Speaker 2: think because we've told girls they can do anything, I
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  Speaker 2: don't think we've said the same thing to boys. And
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  Speaker 2: even if that means you can stay at home and
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  Speaker 2: raise kids, you don't have to, you know, work in
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  Speaker 2: an office and wear a suit, you know you can.
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  Speaker 2: There are so many different ways to be a boy
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  Speaker 2: in the world, and I think that's really important, particularly
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  Speaker 2: if you're the parent of both, because you know, I'm
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  Speaker 2: very conscious of giving my daughter all these empowering messages,
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  Speaker 2: but my younger son is listening to all of those
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  Speaker 2: messages and the conversations that we have about consent and
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  Speaker 2: about danger and about predators and about sexual harassment, and
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  Speaker 2: he hears when we talk about her getting harassed in
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  Speaker 2: the street and how awful that is, and if you
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  Speaker 2: can extrapolate that to mean all men about and I'm
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  Speaker 2: part of a group that is inherently bad when that's
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  Speaker 2: just not true.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm so glad you mentioned that. I actually had
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  Speaker 1: a question here. I was going to ask you, how
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  Speaker 1: do we make sure that boys aren't demonized? Yeah, which
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  Speaker 1: is kind of the extension of what you're just saying.
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  Speaker 1: How do we move from not just making sure that
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  Speaker 1: they know that it's not true. But I mean there
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  Speaker 1: are hashtags. There are some vile hashtags out there. I
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  Speaker 1: know Twitter is not representative of the real world. And
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  Speaker 1: you mentioned even when I mentioned feminism at the beginning
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  Speaker 1: of our conversation, I noticed that there was a little
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  Speaker 1: bit of an eyebrow raise. You're like, well, where are
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  Speaker 1: we going to go with this big because there's a
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  Speaker 1: really milion.
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  Speaker 2: No, no, just that you called it the F word, as
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  Speaker 2: if it was somehow like, oh, feminism. It's just like,
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  Speaker 2: I feel like that idea is really tired, that it's
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  Speaker 2: we've got to somehow apologize or feminism is this big
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  Speaker 2: scary thing. It's like, my kids are feminists, all of them.
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  Speaker 2: They know their dads Like, it's just it's not a
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  Speaker 2: big deal, nor should it be a big deal. But yeah,
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  Speaker 2: I think it's as important to raise feminist sons as
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  Speaker 2: it is to raise feminist daughters.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and then to finish that, you get to that
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  Speaker 1: militant feminism and where you've got the hashtag kill all men.
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  Speaker 1: Ah and and and that's that's kind of where I
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  Speaker 1: was going with the In some in some quarters, feminism
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  Speaker 1: has moved more and more extreme so that it can
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  Speaker 1: quote unquote stay relevant or stay in there in the news.
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  Speaker 1: And what you're suggesting instead is, let's just make sure
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  Speaker 1: that we treat everybody, everybody like We don't have to
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  Speaker 1: have this militant man hating aspect.
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  Speaker 2: That's not what feminism is. And I think that the
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  Speaker 2: people who carry on like that really eve misrepresent it.
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  Speaker 2: And that's why I, you know, roll my eyes. I'm
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  Speaker 2: as exasperated with those people as I am with people
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  Speaker 2: who don't believe that women should have equal rights. I
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  Speaker 2: think that they're both polar extremes of a very wide spectrum.
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  Speaker 2: And really, we don't want anyone to be getting those
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  Speaker 2: kinds of negative messages about male tears. And I find
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  Speaker 2: that just absolutely repugnant, you know, mocking men in any
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  Speaker 2: way I find, you know, incredibly unhelpful and actually just
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  Speaker 2: detrimental to the cause.
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  Speaker 1: It's interesting, again, listen to the way you're talking about this.
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  Speaker 1: I think about what boys want, and I know that
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  Speaker 1: as I talk to them, they want to Most of
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  Speaker 1: them want to have really good relationships with the people
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  Speaker 1: around them. They want to be as they want to.
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  Speaker 1: And yet there is that narrative that seems to be
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  Speaker 1: bubbling up with things like me too, and with that
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  Speaker 1: more militant arm that boys need to be demonized, there's
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  Speaker 1: a problem with them. Let me ask you this mea
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  Speaker 1: what do you see? I mean, this whole summit has
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  Speaker 1: been about all the different things that boys are struggling with,
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  Speaker 1: but in terms of you being the mum of two
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  Speaker 1: boys and also the person who is really watching what's
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  Speaker 1: happening in terms of movements and who's making noise here,
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  Speaker 1: there and everywhere and why, what do you see is
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  Speaker 1: the biggest issues that boys are facing right now? And therefore,
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  Speaker 1: parents of boys, what a great question.
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  Speaker 2: I think. As I said, we've shifted a long way
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  Speaker 2: in a short amount of time. Even between when my
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  Speaker 2: son who's twenty four as a teenager and my young
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  Speaker 2: my oldest son and my youngest son. You know, that's
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  Speaker 2: a gap of eleven years, and I've seen a massive
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  Speaker 2: difference in you know, consent was not a word that
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  Speaker 2: was even used when my son was thirteen, fourteen, fifteen sixteen.
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  Speaker 2: I used to say things to my son and his
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  Speaker 2: friends before, you know, as I drive and drop them
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  Speaker 2: to their night out or drive them to sports training,
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  Speaker 2: I'd be like at the party, you want to be
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  Speaker 2: the one that holds the drunk girl's hair back, not
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  Speaker 2: the one who's trying to pull her pants down. And
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  Speaker 2: you be that guy, Be that guy who makes sure
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  Speaker 2: the girls get home. And I think that that that
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  Speaker 2: idea has been taken so much further by amazing women
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  Speaker 2: like Sheanel Contos and Grace Team as well. I think
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  Speaker 2: that we've almost in some areas demonized the idea of
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  Speaker 2: boys being a little bit awkward, a little bit I
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  Speaker 2: don't know, exuberant sometimes and we've tried to either tell
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  Speaker 2: them that they've got to be tough guys, or if
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  Speaker 2: they show any sign of you know, rebellion or whatever,
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  Speaker 2: completely freaking out and coming down on them like a
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  Speaker 2: ton of bricks. And I think that the hardest thing
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  Speaker 2: now that I've experienced being the mother of teenage girls
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  Speaker 2: and tenage boys and boys and girls like girls will
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  Speaker 2: talk about their feelings all the time, but boys won't.
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  Speaker 2: And I'm just at the begin of that awful tunnel
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  Speaker 2: that they go into with my youngest, which is breaking
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  Speaker 2: my heart every day, where he doesn't talk to me anymore,
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  Speaker 2: and he doesn't want to look at me and my
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  Speaker 2: body discuss him and he barely will look me in
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  Speaker 2: the eye or acknowledge my existence. And it makes me
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  Speaker 2: incredibly emotional to think about the little boy who wanted
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  Speaker 2: nothing more than to give me a cuddle or come
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  Speaker 2: into bed with me, or have me cuddle him in bed,
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  Speaker 2: and all of that, and all of that's gone and
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  Speaker 2: seemingly gone quickly, like seemingly gone overnight, and the heartbreak
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  Speaker 2: of that is so real for me. But what it's
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  Speaker 2: left him without is the ability to talk in the
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  Speaker 2: way that he used to be able to talk to me,
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  Speaker 2: because I don't believe that boys necessarily talk to their
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  Speaker 2: friends like that. So I'm aware all of a sudden
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  Speaker 2: that there is this vacuum in his life that I
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  Speaker 2: can't feel anymore. And it's like there's this wall that's
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  Speaker 2: gone down, and he's kind of, I won't say lost
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  Speaker 2: to me, but I'm cut off from him for years now,
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  Speaker 2: and that's personally distressing, but also as his mother, you know,
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  Speaker 2: I worry about what does get in there, from pawn,
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  Speaker 2: from the internet, from gaming, from you know, everything else,
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  Speaker 2: from YouTube, from everything else he's exposed to. Because it's
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  Speaker 2: this is the age where my role as a parent.
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  Speaker 2: I remember Paul Dylan once said to us in a
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  Speaker 2: parent conversation Paul Dylan, who's a brilliant drug and alcohol speaker.
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  Speaker 2: He said, you know, at around this age in high school,
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  Speaker 2: you go from being your child's manager to being a consultant.
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  Speaker 2: And even though it can feel like you know when
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  Speaker 2: your kids are little, you can you've got more than one.
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  Speaker 2: Particularly can be like, oh my god, well they ever
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  Speaker 2: stop having to manage this child? And then it's like
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  Speaker 2: I'm suddenly about being made redundant and I've been scaled
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  Speaker 2: back to a consultant, and you're like, oh, it can
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  Speaker 2: come as your shock.
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  Speaker 1: Always liked my conversations with me a Friedman. You can
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  Speaker 1: find more that discussion, as well as a whole lot
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  Speaker 1: of other experts talking about bringing up boys. By googling
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  Speaker 1: Happy Families, Bringing Up Boys Summit. All the information will
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: come up to you in the Happy Families web shop
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: if you're bringing up boys and you'd like to know
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  Speaker 1: how you can do it better, how you can protect them,
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  Speaker 1: how you can help them to have a healthy form
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  Speaker 1: of masculinity. Hey, thank you so much for joining me
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  Speaker 1: in the podcast. Today. Tomorrow Kylo joins me again in
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  Speaker 1: the studio as we continue the Happy Families summer podcast
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  Speaker 1: series