If I Speak - 34: How mean can you be to other people’s kids?

Episode Date: October 15, 2024

Ash and Moya channel their inner Clint Eastwoods to lament the rise of trick or treating, and consider how to interact with other people’s children. Plus, a listener dealing with confusing feelings after a difficult abortion. Email your missed connections and dilemmas to [e-mail] Music by Matt Huxley.

Hello and welcome to If I Speak, the podcast for neurotics, yappers and general overthinkers. With me as always is Moya Lothian-McLean. Moya, how you doing? Is this your new regular intro? Because you said it an episode ago and then I asked you if you thought I'm neurotic, if I was neurotic. And now I'm like, is this a regular thing? Is this going to be a regular hello i was asking am i neurotic in a completely non-neurotic way maybe maybe it's a regular thing but i kind of like experimenting with these for like a couple of weeks and then i go nah i'm bored of that one i'll try a different one that's an interesting strategy it's just how i'm thinking of the pod

at the moment just yeah you're just playing around you're just playing around with it how are you doing how am i doing uh i'm very well i'm very well uh like i said in the last episode i'm working a job that's really exciting but has also stretching me so i'm having to use parts of my brain that are long dormant i think the best way to put it is i i haven't been on tiktok for more than maybe 30 minutes since I started this job which it's like Matilda you know when Matilda starts getting taught better like a higher level of maths and suddenly her telepathic powers have gone well my version of Matilda is I'm doing a job which is asking me to do something that is slightly like a new thing for my skill set and but instead of you know using all my brain power to move things I was using my brain power to watch

TikToks and now I don't have the brain power to watch TikToks you've got some questions for me I hear I do I do have questions and because I've got new brain power, I've really thought about them. Right. First question. Do you meet deadlines or are you an extender? Oh, it depends on the nature of the project. For Navara, deadline meter. Sometimes early on the deadline. For big, big projects where you are given so much time to like freeze up and stress out. I'm an extender. That sounds very neurodiverse.

Sorry to say. No, not everything is neurodiverse. I know, I know. Some of us are just flawed. Is it even a flaw or is it? I don't think it's a flaw. I think it is a normal human response. Do you think there's a separation as well?

Because I don't want to blow up your spot, but I've worked with you as an editor before. And I would say in writing, sometimes you're a deadline extender, but I think in video, you're probably very much a deadline meter. So when it's something that you can constantly maybe tinker with, like a written piece

where you have to get everything out on that page rather than when you're doing video where there's like this ability, the flexibility to like express in the moment switch and change do you think that you changed the way that you approach deadlines oh 100 the tinkering is also an expression of anxiety is what it is um and fear of being judged and also my way of dealing with stress is to just like freeze um have an overactive freeze response i think i think that maybe finally finishing this book has given me a bit of insight into myself and given me a sense of how i need to work and structure my time rather than like how i ideally would like to

be um so we'll see maybe give me another big project and I'll see what I can do. I really wanna know how you structure your time now, but I've got to ask more questions. I wanna know how you structure your time. Okay, next question. What books do you put on display for people to see? There is no show off sort of strategy to it because downstairs in my house there's like

one long wall of bookshelves which goes from the living room to they'd knocked through the dining room so it's really really long and just like all the books go on there so you've got everything from stuff which like makes me seem really smart like oh gram sheet oh and then also like june or like rappers autobiographies or like it like it's all just in there do you did you count june as one of the books that doesn't make you seem smart june yeah it's like one of the biggest most complicated sci-fi series about megalomania and political philosophy that you can get it's it's like the smartest fantasy series i don't think it's that smart are you kidding okay on my bookshelf my non-smart books i'm putting them in quotation marks my pleasure pure pleasure books you've got june right your

kind of june is that mine are by controversial now turned i think quite radicalized i can't remember his anti-vax or not i think it don't sound like i don't want to libel her former tory mp former wife of metallica manager louise bagshaw they're the most misogynistic like books you could read and i fucking love them i've got loads of louise bachelors as my these books do not give me a good rep and they're not good representation but they are also a cool part of myself okay wait hang on i've got something which is going to make me um this will disabuse you of any notions of being smart i actually really really love tolkien like i really oh my god ash tolkien is in like the lord of the rings as in tolkien rings I actually really, really love Tolkien. Like, I really, really love Tolkien.

Oh my God, Ash. Tolkien is in, like, The Lord of the Rings. As in Tolkien. The Lord of the Rings. Don't, no, I'm not letting you. Silmarillion. That's the most pretentious thing you've ever said. That's the most pretentious thing you've ever said. Well, that's going to disabuse you of the notion of being smart.

Reading the person who wrote The Lord of the Rings. It's not smart. It's not smart. And, like, me and my house and like me and me and my house mate like me and my house mate like every time because we've been watching the rings of power even though we really really hate it i mean my housemate like you know every thursday evening we'll like sit down and be like man it like departs from the law in this way that's really shit and like they've really just not understood galadriel ash how is this not an expression

of like typical it's a typical signifier of what people would codify as intelligence. I don't think it is. I've read the Lord of the Rings. It is very large, very complex, and it is difficult. It's not like, I think also Ursula Le Guin is someone who's very readable and, you know, anyone can access her. Ursula Le Guin I think is smarter. I think she's smarter, but the Lord of the Rings is used as a marker

of like look at this massive it's like a war and peace of fantasy I'm actually I'm actually I can't believe I said Louise Bagshaw

and you tried to match that with Tolkien are you what are you huffing what are you huffing I've got really I've got really really really strong opinions

about the Silmarillion which I have so many bonk busters I have Pam Rosenthal on my shelf and you want to fucking come at me and say oh Silmarillion which I have so many bonk busters I have Pam Rosenthal on my shelf and you want to fucking come at me and say oh I'm the same I have talked no I'm not having that I'm asking the next question I can't believe you've tried to pull this I can't believe you've done this okay last question the trust is gone the trust is gone last question is hat or scarf okay all right so my talent is that all hats suit me yeah all hats a sombrero

a kangal a napoleonic tricorn all hats suit me um but i prefer to wear a scarf that's so interesting why would that be because i think that hats are a bit hats are a bit much um i i remember because it wasn't that long ago we met at the pub and you were wearing a beret and immediately i was just like bonjour like it's just a hat is a statement hat is saying you did and it was like it was like my friend says that there was an anecdote I heard I think it was on the internet where someone was in like I think Belfast or something

and someone was wearing a beret and then they were like where the fuck do you think you are like Paris no I was telling you because that was my that was my mother-in-law and it was

it was in Peniston and she wore she wore a beret to work and someone just like came up to her and who do you think you are, Suki? Yeah, that's it. And that's the thing about hats.

Hats are very like, who do you think you are? I love a hat. Like, you know, I don't have the gumption for a hat, but I respect those that do. Bloody love a hat. I'm actually the moment living in those elasticated headbands because I don't have a full-length mirror and I don't have time to properly do my hair so I just look like I'm constantly doing a skincare for TikTok routine

with these these headbands on um but out of the two I would always take a hat because I think a scarf is cumbersome and often irritates my skin on my neck. I'm a snood person. That's true, that's true. But then one of the problems with a scarf is that people just wear it new, whereas actually a couple of washes, maybe a bit of fabric softener,

you don't get the itch. True. I do have a beautiful scarf. Anyway, but I am a hat person because I just think a scarf is impractical. Let's go on to your massive theory. This isn't, you know, some of our big theories are, are really like, they have, they have epoch defining implications if we were to take it all the way. This is really me like cleaning out the

corners of my brain and seeing like what's in there. And I realized there's something which I feel so, so strongly about. And I realized this is going to make me sound like such a grump. But it's this. I think that trick-or-treating is disgusting. I think trick-or-treating is awful. I think it's annoying. And if I could, I would ban it.

Like I would just ban it. I think it's an American import. It's designed to make children more annoying and grasping and i hate it and before i get into the detail about it i want to tell you my villain origin story because i have a villain origin story about why i hate trick-or-treating this is how people become the grinch like i could quite plausibly because of this experience become a batman villain where my only purpose is to like terrorize the children of Gotham when they're doing trick-or-treating because what happened was this between the ages of like the zero to eleven my mum was a single mum

and it was fucking difficult it was so so difficult and one of the things that made it really difficult is that my sister was really really sick a lot of the time she like nearly died multiple times like she was like often in hospital and it was one Halloween she was in hospital and I must have been about six maybe seven wasn't that old and I remember we left the ward the pediatrics ward which was itself just such a wrenching moment for my mum because if she didn't have me her younger child she would have just stayed there all night but she couldn't do that she had me and it was just this horrible wrenching moment of like having to leave her sick daughter to take me home like we stayed as long as we could and it was just so stressful for her that time and I think even at

that age I like really picked up just like how distressing it was and how difficult it was for her to not have a partner in in dealing with it and so we got home and we got out the car and the house had been egged because obviously trick-or-treaters had come around and like knocked on the door and no one answered so they egged the house and my mum was just so like I remember her face when she was cleaning off all that disgusting egg from the front of her house. Like it was just horrible for her. Like it was just horrible. It was like the final indignity on what had been a horrible day. So that's my villain origin story. I'd be well within my rights to become a Batman villain because of that. But it is, my hatred has since, if anything,

intensified. Because children dressing up and stuff, that's lovely. I like children enjoying Halloween. But do not fucking send your kids to my house to ask for things. I'm a childless person. I pay tax with a glad heart for your child's education. I should be coming to your house for chocolate but i don't because i have class because i have standards because i'm not a grasping little sugar fiend and you send your child round i don't find your kid that cute they're cute to you they are not that cute to me you send your child round

to my house with the threat of criminal damage swinging over my head like the sword of Damocles so I can give your child chocolate. I hate it. It is pestering. It is a nuisance. When I first got Musa and he was a kitten, he was too little to go outside. And so every time trick-or-treaters came around, I had to hold him so he wouldn't go darting outside because his vaccinations weren't all done yet. And all these children with their sticky fingers would be reaching out towards him to touch his whiskers and he hated it. And to this day, he hates children. He loves adults. He loves adults. Any stranger comes to the house, he's purring and writhing around their legs. If a child is anywhere near the house he's like get that sticky unpredictable

munchkin away from me he hates them i do i do like you know give out chocolates mostly because i'm just i don't want my house to be eggs i do not want my house to be eggs and one year i put out because i was um co-hosting for navarra live i put out like a plate of chocolates because i was just like they were hedgehogs you can't you just can't be you just can't be like knocking on the door all the time like don't disturb me anyway did they respect the do not knock on the door sign no they didn't they're just fucking hammering on the door and then i finally like finished live stream and come down i open it and it's the kid who's like you've run out of chocolate and i was like well that sounds like a you problem to me that's not my problem and he was like oh, do you have any money?

Right, came to my door asking me for money and this fucking mom was stood behind, ha ha ha, isn't he funny? And I was like, if you weren't here, I would beat the shit out of your child, all right? Like you should have done this a long time ago. I really like Halloween and I really like dressing up. I just think that trick-or-treating is an american import like i remember when not many kids did it and now they all do it and it's

because of american tv and i think it is a a coarsening and a corruption of our culture and i i just don't like it and there's one one final thing that i'm going to end on i may give you guys an update on how this goes i'm currently being terrorized by some children what like well no they're like between the ages of like nine and twelve and you know they started like hanging out on our street whatever i don't care they started playing knock down ginger other people other people call knock down ginger different things but it's like when you knock on the door and run away knock and run we used to call it knock and run right i don't mind i never engaged with that tawdry

tawdry practice but it was called knock and run no because my mom would be like don't do that like i don't like my mom would just be like don't do that don't don't be a bother to adults like they work the last thing they need is your sticky little fucking hands. Like, you know, all over their door. Anyway, I don't mind them playing knock down ginger. But now they've started like kicking the door as hard as they can. Like, and then running away. And because they're fucking idiots, they don't know that I can see them. So they did it once.

I came out and I was just like, look, can you just, can you not do that? And they were like, oh, like we didn't do anything. And I was like, listen up, moron. I can can see you and then they did it again the next day and i'm not proud of this but it does appear to have worked i threatened them with calling the police and i was like and i know your faces um like i don't know if this is a crime or not. I'm not actually going to do it. I know, but you've conformed to society's threat, punitive justice. Yeah, I think deterrents are a necessary part of a civilized society. When I did this, my housemate and my husband were both like, you've just put a giant target on our backs.

But to be fair to me they haven't kicked in our door since right they haven't done it since they'll be back with mace when they're two years older and less scared of you well look maybe maybe they'll come back and do it again but then after that like i don't know i've got to think about all the methods that are within the law that i can employ to deter these children because like knock down ginger's fine but like you can't you can't fly kick someone's door to the point where like you know your house is shaking so i'm like i don't want you to like kick my door in that would be a bad thing so that's a that's a little ps addendum to the main point which is i think trick-or-treating is noxious i mean there's two things there's two

things here that are really interesting to me one is the americanization of culture and i'm very anti-american i think i think yankee go home i want i you know if i travel there in the future i do want a visa to get there but i do also think that 90 of american culture is a plague on this earth and it's just like the brashest tackiest most individualistic sort of it's for me i want this thing what can it what transaction can i do kind of that's what underpins a lot of it um like trick or treat what the fuck's that about what what where does where does that i mean i know vaguely where it comes from but the idea that children can go around

people's houses and just be demanding chocolate from them randomly because it's halloween it's got nothing to do with halloween what's that got to do with halloween i'm sure some scholars gonna be like well actually in the pagan times uh the child sacrifices were allowed to walk around and demand an iron bracelet before they were murdered um but i don't see any link between the modern traditions of trickle treating and you know pagan traditions of halloween but the second thing that i want to talk about as well so i want to talk about americanization and how it's leaked into i guess what we'd call english culture although there's a huge debate over whether english culture exists blah blah blah but the culture that we encounter day to day in britain you know the

guy forks of it all the toffee apples which is being eroded by big american style firework displays even though they don't even have fucking guy forks they are firework displays even though they don't even have fucking guy fawkes they are firework displays becoming american style shows of just like what's the word bombastic just displays like almost like parade like loud music you're like you know we've got to get back to our original english tradition of celebrating burning catholics let's go back like lewis let's go back to lewis no not burning catholics just the guys just the guys i mean like those sort of things have been supplanted by a much bigger, brighter, bolder version that is very commercialized. Like why am I paying 10 quid? It's up to like 15 quid to go see like fireworks

when I was in London, like Southwark Park, where there's someone playing Rita Ora's Anywhere as the fireworks go. That is hell. Sorry, that's hell. The Winter Wonderland, hell. All these sort of like- Disgusting. as anywhere as the fireworks go that is hell sorry that's hell the winter winter wonderland hell all these sort of like oh and that's kind of fun but the other part of this is also how you feel about children and the prioritization of children and this image of children these cute

adorable things that feeds into sort of like you know how children and families uh are placed in society and i think there is obviously a massive leftist argument for when people bring up things like child free spaces etc etc i'm kind of like well children should be allowed in pubs even though i fucking hate them in pubs principally they should be allowed in pubs when they're coming to your door and demanding shit from you then it's much harder to tamp down the anti-children feelings because i i don't like children i'm sorry to say it i don't like them uh i don't obviously because of that they really love me um they're like cats i don't enjoy them when i see them out i don't get feelings of warmth

and sometimes sometimes if i see a particularly cute baby i'll be like ah occasionally i'll be like adorable but when they actually come into my day-to-day existence i fucking hate it on principle i'm like okay they have as much right to exist in this public space as i do i wish they'd follow the rules but they are also children so i understand it if they are coming to me coming to my private residence then it's time to get fucking libertarian with it get off my lawn get off get those kids off of my lawn like no i mean so i think there's like a a few like separate things here because like i don't think i have an overall dislike for children i know i don't want them but i don't have an overall dislike for children and i actually i do think that children are so sensitive to how adults feel

about them that when you are in a shared space with them even if you don't want children yourself you're not particularly child focused you do sort of owe them some like warmth and regard and attention because they're so sensitive to when they don't get it but the quid pro quo is that they have to be taught by their parents to not be too demanding of it right they kind of have to be taught how to be like a good child which can kind of like respect other people's space a little bit um and that might sound unreasonable and like maybe this comes from like you know i definitely had an outsized sense of responsibility as a child in terms of like having to help my mom do this really difficult thing which was be a single parent right like that's one of the earliest things that I knew and understood. But I don't, I don't think that's necessarily a bad

thing. And so I think that like, you know, raising children to be in adult spaces, but in a way where they're like, I can also understand that this isn't all for me is like, that's the kind of balance you've got to reach so i think that's the first thing um the second thing is that like you know i think sometimes the stressful thing about children isn't the children themselves it's the parents and it's the way in which parents um uh need you to reinforce their style of parenting what they think about their kids on and so forth which which makes it then really difficult if like a kid is being really rude like demanding money at your door and the parents going isn't that cute like i was like i know it's going to

kick off a fight with this parent if i say no it's not. Like, and you should kind of grab the kid by the ear. Like, I mean, I don't actually believe in physical chastisement of children. Just saying. Don't hit kids. Hitting kids is bad. But like, if I'd said that in front of my mum when I was a kid, she would have, she'd have hit me with the big guns, which is you've really disappointed me.

And I'd have been devastated. Do you think kids get hit anymore? I mean, like, I'm not gonna lie i did get the slipper from several generations of women in my family when i was younger really i never got hit as a kid because everyone in my family is a social worker uh did me and my mom absolutely no damage whatsoever well my mom also knew that the lectures were worse and i remember one time she was like really like you know sometimes these could be like shakespearean soliloquies which were going on and on and on and i remember i was being like mom can you just hit me like other people's parents and she's like no i know this is worse that's why i'm doing it i'm just but i'm thinking now like if i ever had children god god those poor children if i ever had children the idea of

hitting them is so alien to me but i don't know until i'm in that parenting situation but the idea of like being able to reach out and whack a child just feels like repulsive i don't i don't think i'd be able to do it but then sometimes i do see kids in public i'm like i like to beat you up the i like to give you a quick boot or a quick crack around the ear you're so bloody annoying i mean what that is what that is is an expression of like you should have been taught some boundaries like and and i i also think that like you know and this is me being one of those childless people with really strong opinions about other people's child rearing um but like i think that there has been you know you've got to build a relationship with your kid which means that they value your opinion and how you feel and i think that you can draw boundaries through doing

that and when you say to a kid you've really upset me you've really hurt my feelings that that means a lot to them but also if that doesn't work you also maybe have to draw some more punitive boundaries about they can't do all the things they want to do and like I think that is how kids know that they're loved um because when I and when I meet people who as children really didn't have very many boundaries at all and like maybe their parents were like oh you know you do what you want or maybe even send them to boarding school or like whatever it's like without that sense of like i'm being watched over by a parent who loves me who pull me back from the brink when i'm running towards it how do you know you're loved without that like you actually feel quite uncared for but i think maybe on the american culture thing like it is about consumerism

like i think it's so mad that we have adverts targeted at children, or we certainly did when I was growing up and you watched children's TV. And they were often American, they were often American adverts. And I think one of the great sins of the great Satan was to turn children into these units of consumption and marketing to children directly to make them bother their parents to buy these things made of plastic that they don't really need. And I see trick-or-treating as a bit of an extension of that. I don't think children aren't necessarily naturally like that

because what it means to be a child, what we think of as the ideal state for a child is obviously really historically and socially and culturally contingentent but turning children into these consumptive units who are like mommy mommy i want that like oh yeah i guess it's consumption on crack because obviously you know victorian kiddies were still angling for a new hoop and a diablo whatever the fuck they're playing with they were still they were still like i want to save up my shillings to pay all my pennies to pay for this new uh mini like origami horse or something like that but now it's like everything i want all the toys all at once and i have to have them and you know gia tolentino wrote that big essay about skincare and how uh tiktok skincare influencers have created this group of young

children you know eight to twelve who are buying very expensive adult skincare and just like slathering it on like it's lotions and potions back in my day we had like shit boot stuff that we just used to put in a cauldron and mix around and then like play witches with but now the children are not just playing lotions and potions they're putting the lotions and potions on their face and mimicking the the adults they see because what has what is entertainment that's fed to them has moved and now because so much entertainment is just advertising but in the form of like lifestyle content they are they are mimicking that directly like in the back in the day you know advert wise i don't think you get loads they are mimicking that directly. Like back in the day, you know, advert wise, I don't think you get loads of children mimicking,

say the Hot Wheels advert word for word. And now you have children mimicking the influencers who are advertising to them word for word being like, and now I'm going to put on my face this drunk elephant. It's really good. It's very soft and it's fucking weird. It's really weird and really odd, really jarring to see.

And also their skin will be wrecked. You don't need retinol as an eight year old. I was thinking about this, which is that like, so pop culture and the invention of the teenager, like kind of like happens at the same time. Like the idea of a teenager and there being this indeterminate state

between childhood and adulthood didn't really exist. And then like 1950s is like, yes, like this is a distinct period of time which is also created through there being pop cultural products being marketed at that demographic of people right and i think that the fact that like pop culture and like being a teenager is so intertwined i think that does also contribute to like adults being infantilized right so like well into your like 20s and 30s like still feeling like very infantilized right so like well into your like 20s and 30s like still feeling like very infantilized in lots of ways um because in a way like you're being subject to a pop culture industry which is like designed for teenagers um and on the other hand

like it turns children into these like little mini adults in a way which is like you know i'm not trying to like say oh well the state of innocence for children, like no children, children have the desire to mimic what they see adults doing, whether that's how they talk or how they carry themselves or, and you know, they don't, they don't just exist as these like little mini cherubs. I'm not saying that, but when you see children trying to mimic adults, like consumption habits in that way, but like slathering stuff on their skin and being influencers it's like oh that can't be right it can't be right it cannot be right i think it's so right saying like i don't think children are like these innocent completely innocent creatures there's things children get up to that adults

would rather not know about like they would rather not admit to themselves that children can have often children are grappling with things that we see as adult emotions feelings desires all of that stuff they just have not like grown up enough yet to deal with the consequences of if they pursue those or if they saw those through in an adult fashion and they shouldn't have to like they shouldn't have to it's like you're growing you're learning about the world um like they shouldn't have to it's like you're growing you're learning about the world um and getting your brain trained so early in the language of consumption to this degree which i don't even think we were and i'm you know i've been mad on consumption i'm a bear i'm a bear bear consumer um it's not it's not healthy it's not good for the kids i also when you said like you know you have views on people's parenting i, you know, you have views on people's parenting.

I don't think I do have views on people's parenting because I'm so unfit to be a parent myself. I'm like, I don't know about all that. Like, I don't know. I'm not in a position to judge. Like I've got no form on what is good parenting and what's not good parenting. I think it's more that when the, do you know what it is about children that really,

I don't even know if I do actually dislike children. What I'm terrified of and what it is about children that really, I don't even know if I do actually dislike children. What I'm terrified of and what scares me about children is how tired the adults surrounding them are always, always seem to be. How draining it is to be a parent and how much like, because I don't have a child and because I don't have the, at this point in time, the capacity to give that sort of love and sacrifice to another being that i have responsibility to care for watching you know the mums try and struggle with their prams and you have to go help them up the stairs at the station watching an adult go please as a child is crying on a flight watching like children run around a shop as their parent goes come here now like in the most tired voice you could ever hear, knowing that they have to go home

and cook dinner for those children, like seven nights a week, knowing they have to bath, bathe, mop up their scab knees. They have to morally guide them. They have the sheer effort of that. I look at those parents and I'm like, you not to be like your heroes,

because it's not about framing those terms, but like you have something in you that I look at those parents and I'm like you not to be like your heroes because it's not it's not about framing those terms but like you have something in you that I don't have and the idea that I would ever be sad over that terrifies me so much I just actually kind of repulsed by the whole scene like like I don't want these children near me because it reminds me of how much you do give up and they get loads out of it but every parent you talk to is like it's so hard and i'm not prepared for that sort of like difficulty in my life it does seem so hard i think of my own mum who gave up all of that like gave us so much to be where i am today i'm like i don't have it in me i'm actually way more spoiled in that sense i'm spoiled because i just don't have it in me to do that you said

that when i i threatened the children with calling the police on them. Look, I'm sure they don't listen to this podcast, which is why I can't say it's an empty thought. They might do. Children have all these Spotify. They've got loads of stuff now. They're all subscribed to everything. But what would you do? What would you do if, like,

there's children, they're kicking in your front door? What would I do? What would you do if someone's at home? I'm kicking in your door in the bedroom do what would you do if someone's at home um kicking in your door what would i do i don't think i threatened to call the police because i do think that would probably put a target on my back i think i'd go out and try and at first make friends and then and i think i'd try and be like like guys you bought i'd probably bribe them i'd probably

try and bribe them which is not the right way forward but you know but then they come back for more bribes it's like what do you do what do you do i genuinely don't have an answer that's the thing i don't have an answer for these situations i don't know how to deal with children maybe i'll go find their parents but then that could get you an even bigger mess yeah i mean the thing is is that when you say like you know try and find their parents it's like you also don't know how attentive their parents are do you know what i mean like like you don't know are those parents who'd go like that's really embarrassing i'm really sorry i'm gonna make sure they don't do it again or if they're parents who are gonna be like fuck you um and i maybe i maybe have a suspicion that at least one of them is not the most

cared for child on the whole planet like just just sort of get that from like his appearance but so yeah it is you know i think i was thinking about that though best i'd probably do something else i probably wouldn't try and threaten them with the police just because it is adding to maybe that wider problem of even as a child learning that you are bad, like you're morally a bad person and that people will threaten you with this punitive thing because you've transgressed lines.

And it's like, it's not your job to parent them, but I do wonder if I'd try and do something else. But I'm also not in the position, who knows i guess the thing is is like look ideally you would like form enough of a rapport to get them to empathize with you and like not want to do that because they they've got some capacity for empathy and i think that if the kid was on his own maybe you can do that because there's two of them and no one wants to lose face in front of the other i do think the only way is is fear of a punitive option and it's also a punitive option that i'm not going to follow through on but like it's not about learning i am bad it's about learning things that i have that i'm doing or bad i think what i would do if there's two of them

i would try and like talk to them as if a little bit like the adults and then produce a bag of cookies and be like oh yeah i just bought these do you want to fuck off that was how that's what i'd do now i mean i did talk to them like they're adults i did talk to them like they're adults i was like what you're doing is fucking annoying and they're a little bit like ah the old the old lady has sworn. And that's the other thing is that in this encounter, I no longer felt like a young personal part of a young demographic. I felt like old man yells at cloud. You are old man yells at cloud. I was, this is a funny thing.

Did you ever watch America's Next Top Model? Yes. Do you remember, you remember Nigel Barker, noted photographer from Nigel Barker? Noted fashion photographer. Noted fashion photographer. I was listening to Who Weekly this week and this gave me a really clear perspective

on how skewed when you're younger, your view of like ages. So how old do you think Nigel Barker was? How old did you think he was when that series started? Like in his forties or something? He was 31. Do you now see like anyone over the age of like 28 29 is just old middle-aged when you're young like you're watching that in the early noughties

like there's nigel barker 45 year old nigel barker middle-aged nigel barker no the nigel barker was 31 45 isn't even old to me anymore. 45 is like, oh, some of my friends will be there soon. You know, like that's a normal age. Yeah, but like with these kids, with these meddling kids, it's like I actually kind of want them to see me as someone who's like older and has their shit together rather than like someone who like

doesn't know what they're doing. Like I walked out like I was the Terminator because I was like, if they sniff even the slightest bit of uncertainty or self-doubt here i'm finished i'm toast you treat see this is the thing i treat kids like animals but i think you're actually even more guilty treating kids like animals because you're like they're gonna smell like they're like and but do you not think that you're perpetuating a cycle because children do smell fear i remember being a child i remember i remember

with supply teachers or just and it was always the language teachers like oh poor senor vittoria you could sniff their fear and you would exploit it that's also what kids are like yeah yeah i i think the more we move away from kids though the more we're just like fuck kids like oh like this is the thing do you think that as you get older, you just completely lose empathy with generational gaps, like people who are different generations to you? Because the way I talk about Gen Z is quite disparaging, even though I'm right next to them. And also generations don't... Millennials and Gen Z are actually the same generation, sorry. But like the micro generations, like boomers, Gen X, all of that, the way that we

talk about these age groups has become so entrenched and so like disdainful depending on where you are it's like when you're in year nine and you look at the year sevens you're like oh the worms but they're giant backpacks yeah they're giant backpacks those losers and it's like you were year seven literally two years ago but you just have to find there's like we'll do this hierarchy that you keep but i mean the thing is i i don't i don't think it is that and i'll tell you why is that like i do find like lots of kids quite sweet like i was spending time with um um my brother-in-law's daughter who's bats turn one and she just loves sharing and she loves sharing because she's worked out that people are pleased

when she hands them something so all she wants to do is just hand you things because she's worked out that people are pleased when she hands them something. So all she wants to do is just hand you things. That doesn't count as a charge you've humanised because they are connected to people you love. Like I'm pretty sure if my housemate

keeps talking about wanting a kid and I'm like, if you had that kid I would love that kid so hard. But that would be the exception kid. Okay, not just that.

Kids on the bus. I love making faces at kids on the bus. Like, you know, stuff like making a toddler laugh. I love doing stuff like that. I even like doing that because it shows that they think that you have an interesting face. But no, it's when things get tough that it matters.

And there are lots of kids where I go, that's really sweet. But I also remember what it was like being a kid and being kind of terrified of other kids. I mean, you know that i agree with you that children are banging on your door is annoying are the devil what i'm what i'm playing the devil's avocado on is when you were talking about judging other people's parenting and then you're like i'm like yeah but if you're a parent you'd be threatening to call your police on your kids when they just are annoying the thing is is that like we don't live in a culture anymore where like kids are worried about like upsetting their neighbors in case it gets back to their parents you know it's maybe like a year and a bit ago

or something like um some kids who were just obviously like you know anywhere between like 12 and 15 had like g'd themselves up to a point where they were like we're gonna rob my friend and the thing holding back my friend from like dealing with the situation he's like i can't hit a kid but you're all like running after me and like surrounding me and like jostling me because you've all like g'd yourself up to this thing and i can't defend myself the way that i would against another adult because you're all kids what am i supposed to do here like what is it I'm supposed to do because I can't hit you because you're kids politically like reporting you to the police is like not the done thing

I know what school you go to because like I can literally see your school uniform what am I supposed to do and I think what he ended up doing was like calling the school to say like look some of your pupils like did this and then the school got the police involved it's really difficult to know what to do in a way which is both like socially responsible and also like yeah like within the law like you can't you can't go around hitting kids even when they are behaving in ways which are very provocative okay so we've established we won't hit children um and i think that's a good place to move on to our next segment okay but on trick-or-treating do you agree

with me that trick-or-treating should be ended yeah but also weirdly we didn't have any trick-or-treaters on our street which was very residential i lived in a this is in london i lived in a house on a residential street with loads of kids and there was zero trick-or-treaters they just didn't turn up um and we didn't really have any when i lived in herefordshire i don't think we've ever had trick-or-treaters at the door um but apparently you live in place where there's loads of trick-or-treaters like most most of the kids are like actually like fairly sweet i just find the concept annoying but some of the kids oh little shit yeah yeah get i think i think get rid of anything that's like american and exacerbates or encourages american over consumptive habits

just yeah that's what should happen is there should be a table on the street one big bucket with and all the kids have to fight it out for some sweets and the ones who win get the sweets yeah like um in the hunger games and they've got to like fucking like fight for the medicine and stuff yeah exactly the cornucopia right i'm in big trouble you know i'm actually not but some of our special ones are we've got some dilemmas who wants to read the first one you or me um but how do people submit a dilemma oh of course ash you're so good at getting the emails in and i'm just like if you want to submit a dilemma think really hard and we'll be able to sense it of course wish upon a star wish upon a star i actually do you know what's really funny i made a wish at glastonbury Wishing Well this year and it came true.

So keep wishing guys. Okay, so if you want to submit a dilemma to, or a misconnection, we're also taking those, submit it to ifispeak, all one word, all lowercase, at navarramedia.com. That is ifispeak at navarramedia.com. We have loads of dilemmas and we will do another dilemma show at some point to mop them up but today these are the ones we're talking about

do you want to read i think you should read i can't read dear asha moya you're both big inspirations to me and i love your podcast thanks so much for everything you do and keep fighting the good fight i've said this before but it always cracks me up how there's sort of an unspoken code that you have to open the email with some like nice messages slash ass licking it happens on every dilemma podcast like there's just there's a really good episode the receipts that came out recently obviously the og dilemmas where they have louis threw on and the girls are reading out the dilemmas and they're like really embarrassed because they have such big paragraphs of just like, you're the most amazing girls in the world.

And because there's a third party, they're like, we're kind of clocking how like, you know, over the top some of this is. You're both big inspirations to me. I love your podcast. Thanks so much for everything you do. Keep fighting the good fight. My dilemma is,

oh, I should probably say, trigger warning here. We're going to be talking about uh abortion my dilemma is that i unexpectedly became pregnant a couple of months ago and underwent a complicated and difficult abortion which has left me feeling a bit traumatized if faced with the hypothetical choice prior to this experience i would have said that i'd get an abortion without hesitation and wouldn't feel much about it. I'd previously said I wasn't interested in having children as being a mother wasn't for me. However, I found the experience very difficult. Physically, my medical abortion failed and I ended up with an infection and required surgery to remove

leftover infected tissue. Emotionally, I feel sad, disturbed, vulnerable and isolated. It's not that I don't have a support network. I have been with a boyfriend, my boyfriend a few months, and he's been with me throughout all of this. However, I don't think he really understands how serious this feels to me or how long it's going to take for me to feel okay again. Since becoming pregnant, I've had a heightened fear of abandonment. I feel very lonely and insecure when he isn't with me. My friends are great and trying to be supportive. A couple of them have even undergone abortions themselves, but they didn't find it isn't with me. My friends are great and trying to be supportive. A couple

of them have even undergone abortions themselves, but they didn't find it as upsetting as me. Maybe it's the Catholic upbringing. I feel like culturally there isn't that much space to have nuanced feelings about abortion. I can't see it as something flippant or an extension of the morning after pill, and I feel very down about the whole thing. However, that doesn't mean I wish I was having a baby or think the abortion is wrong i'm not sure how to feel better i'm scared to expose myself and be completely vulnerable about how much support i feel i need from people in my life i'd appreciate your thoughts and advice maybe other special ones have been through a similar thing i'd love to find community who thoughts oh special one that's so rough in it it's just so rough do you want to go first with sharing i can i can go first um i don't have

loads to say because what i want to say is just and i don't want to sound trite but everything you're feeling is so valid you went through an experience that you know you can't predict how you're going to feel when you have an abortion. And I think sometimes my friend has written about this in a book that's coming out soon, which is a really thing that stuck with me. She's talking about heartbreak and she's like, I'd mistakenly thought because I could intellectualize how it felt that I'd know how heartbreak felt, that I knew how it felt and then when it happened to me she realized she she didn't understand at all because she hadn't experienced it sadly some things are things you have to go through to know how you react to them um and I think you're right I think

there is sometimes a lack of nuance when it comes to abortion because we're so well a lot of us are so worried that anti-pro-choice anti-abortion sort of camps will seize on any of us talking about you know this is difficult this is something that i felt sad about and traumatized and complicated it was complicated for me and they will take that and be like this is why abortion shouldn't be allowed look at these women or like look at these people having abortions and uh how they're how it's affecting them, the trauma. Like that will be taken as a narrative and used against us. But there are places you can find that sort of nuance. I think you're totally right to want to look for a community of people who've gone through it too.

The other aspect to it is that your abortion was extra complicated. There was physical trauma that came with it you had you had you know look this is this is more common than you think people sometimes this uh fetal matter left over and it can get infected there was a recent case in the u.s where a woman in an anti-abortion state went through a medical abortion i think at home and there was still a fetal matter and it became infected but when she went to hospital i think it was something like they refused to perform the operation that a very simple procedure that would have cleared it out and she died as a result of the infection and that's what happens when anti-abortion law is in place when there is not laws allowing women to have autonomy over their bodies and i think that

again these back in the argument we're scared of having seen those camps gain ground legally, um, in countries that supposedly would never go backwards over the last few years. So there's this fear sometimes of actually voicing the, the, the complexities around abortion and the feelings. Um, and again, it's like, you've gone through this very particular experience and no one around you seems to have gone through the exact experience. So you just are like, no one knows exactly how I feel. I feel alone. You'll be grieving. You're grieving your previous self as well.

You're grieving that person who didn't know what it was like to feel these things and didn't know what it was like. There'll be probably resentment for your boyfriend who's only a boyfriend of a few months. And I imagine that as well. It's like a boyfriend of a few months um and i imagine that as well it's like a new relationship you don't maybe have that deep deep understanding and language of what happens when things get hard i imagine that probably is fed into the decision to get the abortion in the first place um but i don't think it might be the catholic upbringing but it also just might be the natural human reaction to something that is very very difficult and very uh i don't want to use the word traumatizing because i use it so much but you you went through something that is very, very difficult and very, I don't want to use the word traumatizing because I use it so much,

but you went through something that engenders trauma because of the particular details of the experience. And it just wasn't as easy as perhaps you'd hoped it would be. That is normal. That is so normal. I mean, the thing that I think is maybe most important for us to try and address is

you're scared to expose yourself and be completely vulnerable about how much support you need why are you scared why is there that fear there that's the thing that you need to address because you know that you need to reach out and tell these people how you're feeling but as you say there's a there's something holding you back there was a fear of saying this is the support i want um and that's why i wish we had a bit more detail on maybe what those fears were and what was stopping you saying it is it because there's a shame is that because you think that because is it because you think because you don't see it as this easy flippant thing then somehow there's like oh i failed to just like write this off because i no one's going to react like that no one's going to think like that they might be reacting to you now trying to be like it's fine like you know it happens

because that's what they think you want to hear to try and move forward but if they knew that you actually want to be like this was really tough and i wanted to talk about this in depth and how much it's affected me i think they would be very open to hearing that but i don't know ash what do you think i think that you may have got your finger right on the button here when you said this could be about shame because when I was listening to the dilemma that was the word that really came up for me which is I think that this special one might be dealing with layers and layers of shame about this abortion. And the thing about shame is that it doesn't always work in a really logical way. And sometimes

you can feel two completely contradictory, shameful feelings and narratives at the same time. So you might feel a sense of shame that you can't just shake this off as an extension of the morning after pill. And you also maybe feel ashamed that you've had an abortion in the first place. You know, you mentioned that there's a Catholic upbringing. And I was thinking about this in relation to sexual assault, because something which is really, really, really, really common for victims of sexual assault is to feel a sense that they were punished for doing something wrong. And that's why this bad thing happened, that in some way, it was their fault, that there was something that they shouldn't have done and then this thing happened and i have heard that and i felt that um and i've heard that from women

who are the staunchest most politically switched on feminists you can imagine and so if you spoke to them about sexual violence in the abstract they would say it's never you know it's never a woman's fault like it isn't a punishment it's a reflection of this thing what happened was outside of your control and they can feel that about the issue in abstract and then when it comes to making sense of something that was traumatic for them that's when the shame comes in and i wonder if there's something like that going on here which is that your body went through a tremendous trauma from the details that you gave and I wonder if there's a part of you which feels like well was this particularly traumatic and difficult experience like a punishment for something like do I feel ashamed

for having needed an abortion in the first place do I feel ashamed for having made the choice to get an abortion and then layered on top of that is a shame of like, well, I'm like a bad feminist or I'm not appreciative enough of having this right to get an abortion, which is, you know, under attack and denied to so many women. And you're finding ways to like, you know, you're feeling so vulnerable right now. so vulnerable right now um and the thing about shame is that it makes you feel exquisitely vulnerable but also is really inhibiting when it comes to reaching out to others to share those feelings with people and get the support and the love that you need um so i i wonder if that's what's going on for you um i think to just like bring it back to to abortion and how you're supposed to feel and that kind of thing is that these things are entirely subjective and that's right you know for some women it's like this was a bundle of cells and for other women it

was a much more difficult and wrenching choice because deep down they feel that there was an element of personhood there it's like if a woman was to have a miscarriage and she felt a sense of grief for that miscarriage you wouldn't go oh well that's a bundle of cells and similarly if someone got an abortion we wouldn't be like or at least if you're pro-choice you wouldn't be like, or at least if you're pro-choice, you wouldn't be like, that was a human life. You know, these things are subjective and it's about how you feel about the pregnancy, what you want, how you feel in your body. And you don't have to flatten out your experience to make it fit a narrative. It can just be your experience um you know i think i think the special one is completely right to identify the lack of nuance and we can all understand the reasons why that is and as you said moya you know abortion being under attack does close down that space for nuance um but you really have to give yourself permission for it and to talk it through with people who know you

and love you and I think to you know I don't want to put words in your mouth and maybe you'll listen to this and go nah I don't I don't feel a sense of shame or like nah I don't feel like you know I don't have this narrative in my head about being punished um but if you do and I say this is someone who has like really really struggled with very intense feelings of shame and still struggles with it, is that the best antidote to shame is sunlight and bringing it into contact with other people. as to add i think that's that said it all but i i really hope that you either are already in the process of um talking to people or that this this airing out has brought a bit more into the sunlight do you want to do one more dilemma yeah go on then yeah let's do it go on you you read out all right dear if i speak i admire you both for your dedication to walking the walk and it makes my own daily struggle to do so more bearable so thank you with aligning thoughts and actions in mind i want to throw a subject into the ring

yoga i find yoga so helpful both physically and mentally it grounds me like nothing else i think it makes me a calmer kinder more regulated person i used to practice a few times a week in a class setting shout out more yoga harangue and i have recently moved from London to Central Asia. Doing yoga in my apartment wasn't hitting the spot anymore. I enjoy being in a hot stinky room with lots of sweaty people breathing in unison. My conflict arose when due to some miscommunication with the instructor due to my limited language I turned up to a traditional Ashtanga yoga centre to what I thought was a beginner's class but was actually a room full of very dedicated yogis in inconceivable postures, Sanskrit non-negotiable. I was out of my depth spiritually, physically, linguistically,

and the experience has led me to question the secularised, perhaps sterilised, version of yoga I'd been practising. I'm not uncurious and have done some reading around holistic yoga practice and teachings in the past, but it never felt like a prerequisite to enjoying yoga before now. I find gym style workout yoga jarring. I want to sweat but without a PT shouting at me and the breathing and meditative quality is as important to me as the physical exercise. But do I need to go all in? As tentative yogis yourselves what are your thoughts and feelings on authenticity within the practice and what would you do if you were me stick to yoga with adrian in my bedroom but miss out on the socky smells and social aspect or get the yoga sutras downloaded on the kindle asap side note i am also baffled by the most toxic person you know to yoga instructor pipeline is this just me or is

it ubiquitous thanks unhappy baby unhappy baby is a really interesting and telling sign off um yeah ash what do you think um i mean look i do yoga quite a bit and i all right do you want to know my most gb news opinion go on i find fellow south asians complaining about cultural appropriation when it comes to yoga just really really tiresome i find it tiresome and the reason why is this one yoga is like a massive export for india it's a massive um aspect of india projecting soft power and i don't think that you can call it cultural appropriation when narendra modi really wants you to appropriate it that doesn't make it right but it's just it's not like white people like scooping something up and stealing it and running away that's that's not the dynamic two is that like you know i i'm a pick and mix spirituality person and some of the

spiritual elements of yoga i i find it's helpful for me to like drop down into my body, to process stress, to give me a different kind of perspective on life. And that's good. But also I've been in yoga classes and people have said some dumb fucking shit. Like I was in a yoga class and this woman very, very, very earnestly, she's the yoga teacher.

She was like, I believe that the body is 3D. And I was like, bitch, we all believe that. Like none of us was like, oh, the body is 2D. Like we all believe the body is 3D. Um, so I, I find, I find some of the like cultural appropriation stuff around yoga a bit tiring. I think, however, if you've gone into a space and it's a very, very spiritual one, if you've gone into a space and it's a very, very spiritual one, um, you have to be respectful that that is the purpose of that space. Um, it's like when you go to mass and you're not Catholic or Christian yourself, loads of my friends are Catholic. So I've gone to mass a lot. Um, like, you know, you go up to get blessed, but you don't take the communion you know there's a degree of like you've got to work out what level of participation in those spaces communicates respect and humility to this practice which you know is being taken very very seriously around

by the people around you without necessarily doing things that you don't believe um and that may be possible in this case with this particular yoga class that you found, but I don't think that is a prerequisite for all yoga. I think you can just want to move your body around, do some deep breathing, believe that the body is 3D, and that's fine. What do you think? I think this dilemma is about culture shock. I think it is about the fact that they have moved to central asia and this yoga class has become a representation uh or symbolic of them trying to find their feet

or their downward dog as it were um and and they are asking whether they should continue pushing their horizons or whether it's okay to sometimes revert to sort of this comfortable space that they know and the familiarity. That's what I think they're actually asking. Because it's not a choice between yoga or Adrian or going to this yoga class. There's gonna be yoga classes that practice the type of yoga that you would have been doing in Haringey. You know, Central Asia is like, there's loads of spaces where that will be happening.

There's loads of gyms and yoga studios where they will practice the kind of yoga that you will recognize. It's not somewhere where they're only going to be doing like seriously dedicated, you know, spiritual yoga that's non-secular. So i don't think it's actually a question about that because if you want that yoga class you can use google translate enough to go and find it that is going to be out there i think what it's actually about is they have stepped into an environment

they didn't expect to and it's made them realize there is this you know there's it's like often sometimes you sometimes you step into somewhere and you're like I didn't mean to go here but I've accidentally seen a window into a completely different way of doing stuff and something that's unfamiliar and it's pushed me and it's reminded me there's other ways of doing things out there and there's now this question of is my way just sort of like comfortable and also this question of is it authentic I think there's so much wrapped up in this idea of having to achieve authenticity and I think what you should really be asking instead is were you interested in this class when you were in it you know look beyond the

fear and the I'm being stretched in all these different ways were you interested would you want to go down that path because you don't necessarily have to start at that level. Like you wouldn't be back in that class again. You would be, as you say, downloading like Yoga Sutra and starting to explore more about that type of yoga. And do you want to do it out of a genuine interest or do you just feel like you should do it because it seems more authentic to you? And so I said that in quote marks that you can't see, more authentic. And it's this optimized sort of like, this is the platonic ideal of what yoga should be.

Because if it's for the latter reason, just go to the yoga that you enjoy and you get something out of. Yoga, as you've said, is meant to be something that helps you sort of like relax. It makes you a calmer, more kind, more regulated person. If doing this type of yoga is just gonna make you stress about whether you're doing yoga right don't do it go to the yoga practice

that is gonna make you the calmer kinder more regulated person it's not meant to add more sort of stresses to your life but if you did enjoy the feeling of being stretched and you also see it linked to you know you're in this new place you've moved to this new place, and you want to do these new experiences to try and see where your horizons can go. It's like, you know, in my new job, I'm being stretched. That is important to me because I'd reached a place where I was very, very comfortable, but I felt stagnant. And so now being stretched is discomforting at first, but I know I will move with it. And you have to make that decision of like, is this yoga representative being stretched in a good way or is it something that will stress you out because you're trying to reach this idea authenticity and doing it right those are two very different things I think that

sounds like wise advice um who are you and what has this been I've been Moira Lothian McLean and oh I need to just correct something on the record I don't do yoga i don't do yoga because my mother is a yoga teacher and therefore i've taken a teenage position which is not doing something that would be very good for me but don't think i'm not a yoga enthusiast i really should have called her and been like what do you think mother and she and she said what are you talking about you're inventing problems you know when you tell your parents stuff and And she said, what are you talking about? You're inventing problems. You know, when you tell your parents stuff and you're like trying to come and explain things to them and they're just not getting it.

I told her someone had made, you know, Marvin Gaye. Someone had made a playlist of like loads of Marvin Gaye songs. Because all his songs are titled things like what's going on? What's happening now? Where are we, brother? And someone was like, here's Confused confused ass and my mum loves Marvin Gaye so I showed her this playlist being like ha ha ha look at this mum look at this joke she's like what are they talking about he's they don't understand Marvin Gaye like I don't get the joke more it's not mom it's a joke it's just a joke that's so funny uh shout out moya's mom who are you uh i am ash sarkar and i'm interested in attending a yoga class run by your mom right we can arrange that all right yes bye to the special ones bye bye