Life Uncut - ASK UNCUT - Who's Your Donor?

Starting point is 00:00:00 Life Uncut acknowledges the traditional custodians of country whose lands were never ceded. We pay our respects to their elders past and present. Always was, always will be Aboriginal land. This episode was recorded on Darug Walamutta land. Hi guys and welcome back to another episode of Life Uncut. I'm Laura. I'm Brittany. And it is Thursday and on Thursdays we wear green. Britt and I from across the other sides of the world have managed to rock out today wearing almost the exact same thing.

Starting point is 00:00:37 And you know what's ridiculous is you and I don't wear a lot of colour in the day to day. Like we're pretty plain. You probably wear slightly more than me. I did try and have my year of colour last year but I ended up going back to beige. But this happens so often when we decide to actually wear a colour we turn up in the same thing. This probably sounds like it's very uninteresting and wear across that we're wearing bright green the exact same color bright green this also reminds me of that was it a channel 9 reporter i can't remember her name who was like you can't wear the white jacket so we're having shirt gate yeah it's shirt gate anyway look this is our ask uncut episode where we answer you're deep you're dark and you're burning dirty sometimes dirty sometimes

Starting point is 00:01:18 not questions but today's episode almost didn't happen because i almost died on the way to work today. I know I like to make that sound dramatic, but it actually was kind of dramatic. So I was running in literally, we nearly lost you in case you nearly had to step in. Oh, we talked about this on Tuesday's episode. You could have done the recording from my funeral. Once again, good for the downloads. What happened? So I had to drop the kids off to daycare this morning. Usually Matt on a Monday and a Wednesday, which are recording days, Matt kind of does the heavy lifting, but he was out the door first thing this morning to go to the airport because he was flying to Melbourne. So I'm running around. This is why I look the way I look because of everything I had

Starting point is 00:01:56 to do this morning. So I get the kids ready. I threw them in the car, get them to daycare and I'm walking out of daycare. I've got a coffee in one hand. I've got my phone in one hand and right in front of the daycare is like a pedestrian crossing. I wasn't paying any attention. I had my face in my phone, which is stupid, but also so unlike you, Laura, in my defense, it's a pedestrian crossing. You just expect people are going to stop. So I'm walking along and then I could just sound in my periphery. I was like, that car feels like it's going dangerously fast for a car that should be stopping. And I look up, wait for it. The car fangs it through the pedestrian crossing. It is an old lady in her nineties driving a Mercedes with the windows down.

Starting point is 00:02:37 She was probably having a fag out the window. She's having a great old time. She's got like books that John Laws on the radio. I was like, this is one of two things. Either she's senile and she didn't actually see me and she can't drive and probably should lose her license. Or two, she's so old, she doesn't give a single fuck anymore. And she's like, I don't have time to stop at pedestrian crossings. I'll take you down, bitch. It was one of those two. She's probably been A for B to B. She probably hasn't gone for her eye test for driving for like 25 years. She probably can't see. She probably got tunnel vision. I very much agree. But anyway, to the point where I'm standing on the pedestrian

Starting point is 00:03:12 crossing, she's driving through it with her windows down and I'm talking to her through the window like what the fuck are you doing and she just looked at me but it still didn't register that she'd done something wrong she's just happy you're like don't take your eyes off the road keep driving I keep looking forward well I'm glad you made it I nearly died while I was on holiday too stop being a story topper what happened to you oh I nearly got eaten by a shark there we go so glad you made it it's one of those sharks that has no teeth like it nearly sucked me to death Well, it wouldn't be a bad way to go. Could be worse.

Starting point is 00:03:51 Brittany has a new fetish and it's being sucked off by a gummy shark in the Maldives. Too far? Yeah, when you guys said, was it romantic? Boy, was it romantic. Ben was like, hey, what's going on down there? I want a piece of that. All right. Okay.

Starting point is 00:04:06 We spoke about this on Tuesday's episode. Normally on Thursdays, we get sidetracked. We talk about lots of other things before we get to unpacking your questions and we have been receiving some feedback last year that maybe we should focus on answering more questions rather than talking about ourselves for so long. So we're going to take that on board. We have extra questions on today's episode. So this is going to be like a media ask uncut, but also because we've been on holidays for

Starting point is 00:04:29 the past four weeks, we have received so many questions and like I'm talking hundreds of questions. So to anyone who sent them in, like, thank you so much. We're doing our best to get through all of them. and I feel like today like we've got such a good mix because they're so different and they're so varied we have some pretty hectic divisive ones today as well don't we we always had like a little bit of a fight beforehand because no it was not a fight but it was just a um fight sometimes Laura and I go very different paths to get somewhere and there's some sometimes there's like some

Starting point is 00:05:00 wrestling and jiu-jitsu along the way but usually we get to like we get to the end point but it's how different brains work and how different thought processes work I think is also healthy to have disagreements sometimes. Also, I do think that we are both in our own ways quite stubborn. So when we don't agree with each other, we fight harder to like get our point across in order for the other person to understand why we feel the way that we feel. Yeah. I'm like, I'm hearing you and I feel you Laura, but you're wrong. That's pretty much how it goes down. No, we're joking. But before we get into answering your questions, we are still doing our vibes and unsubscribes of the week. Producer Keisha, welcome. Welcome back. We do have a little life update for Producer Keisha.

Starting point is 00:05:42 Producer Keisha, would you like to talk to us about you taking the next step? I love that. I said to you guys, we had a planning meeting last week before, you know, we came back to work for the year. And I was like, guys, I have one life update. And both of you were like, what is it? And I was like, well, I'm not going to tell you because I want to tell you on the podcast. And then both of you were like, we fucking know what it is. the jig is up the jig is up so for the course of the last 10 months it has been a bit of a running joke on the podcast that uh my boyfriend Toblerone who we call Toblerone because unlike us he's a very private he's a very private person can't relate none of us we're all over sharers

Starting point is 00:06:20 you know what I think is so interesting about this like Toblerone is very private but Keisha has no issue with sharing all of his things on the podcast she just does it with him under the guys of the name Toblerone. Yeah, but then she tags you on Instagram. It doesn't make any sense to me either. She's like, no, I will ever know. I don't understand. I don't understand why there is a difference between social media and the podcast, but it is what he has requested. And I kind of go, well, I don't really get to make, you know, I don't get to make those decisions. You've told me what you're okay with and I've just got to play on. So we have finally dropped the L bomb. Finally said, I love you. Okay. Well, okay. So we did speak about this on the podcast

Starting point is 00:07:05 because you know, we're all about feminism and, but the reason that I had felt it for so long and then I didn't say it to him and I was waiting for him to say it to me, I guess if I'm being completely honest, like there would have been a percentage of ego involved in it, but it wasn't entirely ego based. It was more so that I'm a very expressive person. I'm a words of affirmation girly and I just know that he's not like that I know that he's slower to get to the point at which he would be comfortable and so no part of me wanted to make him feel as though I was like pressuring him into it or rushing him into it and I also felt like if I were to say it even though I wholeheartedly meant it and he wasn't at the point where he was ready to say it yet I feel

Starting point is 00:07:46 like it could have changed this dynamic in our relationship and I just I didn't want that to be the case. So I waited, but when it actually happened, Brittany, I have an absolute bone to pick without shared child, Delilah, because she nearly, nearly, nearly ruined it. So we were spending Christmas apart because he's not from here. And so we had this kind of like pre-Christmas dinner booked and it was meant to be this really beautiful thing. And so I had Delilah with me because you're over in Scotland. For a couple of days leading up to it, it had just been absolutely pouring down with rain. And if you have an active dog, you know how detrimental that is to your wellbeing because you can't take them out for runs and wear them out. So this day it was just

Starting point is 00:08:26 pouring down with more and more rain. And I was like, look, I'm just going to take her to the beach. We're going to go for a run. We're going to get wet. Like I've just accepted. We're both going to be drowned rats. I'm going to come home, got a washer. It'll be fine. Delilah and I go to the beach. We're running up and down the beach. She's having the best time of her life. We're about to get back to the car and I'm about to drive home. And she looked at me and she made eye contact and she was like I'm gonna fuck your life she's like what can I do to make your life hell she took off she found a bunch of dead birds she was rolling around in these things trying to cover every orifice of her body in dead bird scent I eventually got to her so she's now soaking wet

Starting point is 00:09:07 I'm soaking wet she's in dead wet bird and I have to get her back into the car I get back to Toblerone's house. I'm washing her head to toe. She's hating life. I blow dried her at home. And by the time I got back, I was like, you know what? I just actually can't be bothered. I cannot be bothered to do this nice dinner. Like my energy is completely gone. So we ended up getting takeaway and we had this really boring dinner at home. I was in the filthiest mood you could ever imagine. And he turns to me and he's like, I love you, sweetheart. It just came out of absolutely nowhere in my mind like I it was just something that I hadn't expected that was it that was it it was like because he had been planning on doing this really nice Christmas dinner you know he said

Starting point is 00:09:50 that he'd been thinking about it for quite a while and that he wanted it to be this really nice special moment but it wasn't a special moment the way you said it guess it's time ah yeah I love you sweetie I think it was because of how bad my mood was like I was just so pissed off at the world was it a proper love declaration or it's almost sounding a bit like it was looking at you like a bit sympathetic like you're in the bad mood i love you you know like you know how there's that different tone has he said it more than once since yes oh see yes so floodgates are open yeah i turned to him and i was like i've been waiting a long time to say that to you and he's like look i have as well but i wanted it to be a nice moment and i just kind of resorted to the fact that that

Starting point is 00:10:32 wasn't going to happen tonight as I had initially planned. But yes, to summarize, we have now said I love you. We've also now moved in together. Things happen in a weird order in our relationship. Wow, 100 miles an hour, doesn't it? Crawling to the line or it's the fastest thing you've ever experienced. So that is my life update. And thank you to all of the very beautiful people who have messaged me throughout the course of the last 10 months telling me how long it took for your partner to tell you that they love you because I felt that. I really felt supported by all of your messages. She needed the validation.

Starting point is 00:11:04 Well, guys, let's get into vibes and unsubscribes of the week, because I have an unsubscribe this week, which is controversial, but I have strong feelings about it. Keisha, what is your vibe? Well, my vibe for this week comes off of the back of you guys speaking with Mark Manson. So, I've started listening to his podcast, and there's someone who joins him on his podcast a lot, and that guy's name is Drew Burney. Now, Drew used to be a behavioral neuroscientist, and he now calls himself a content nerd for Mark Manson. So he's worked for Mark since 2014. They have a really close relationship. And so much of what he was saying on the podcast, I was like, wow, this guy has like an amazing amount of insight. I find everything he says

Starting point is 00:11:40 really interesting and quite nuanced. Like he often has a different perspective to what I naturally would have thought. Similar to Mark though, you know, like he tells it how it is, but it's not always what you think you're going to hear. Drew actually has a newsletter of his own and it is called Traction and the latest one that he dropped was titled Do It Your Damn Self and there was this part of it and he said going through the struggle is where the rewards lie not just the money and the recognition but the feeling you get when you see something come together that you did your damn self. So it's about that satisfaction you get out of something when you really feel like you've earned it and how you can sit in that joy of it for so much longer

Starting point is 00:12:17 when you truly feel like not so much that you've earned it I guess but that you've done so much in order to put yourself in that position well I guess it's this idea right of when you have done it your damn self it broadens your perception around what you're able to achieve you're like oh okay I didn't think I could do that thing whether it be I mean for some people it could be something stupid like installing a mirror that's my next DIY project is I'm gonna install this mirror in our house I know that's where my brain went to but like you know me four years ago if you'd said, Laura, you need to drill a hole and do X, Y, Z, I would have been like, ah, that's outside of my remit. But I think anytime you expose yourself to doing something

Starting point is 00:12:53 that you've never done before, that was a little bit challenging. You learn a new skill. You can then sit in the reward of being like, ah, okay, I'm really confident in the fact that I can do things I didn't know how to do. And I can do things I thought were hard. Yeah, absolutely. So that's what this particular newsletter was about. I know that we all love Mark Manson's newsletter. And so Drew has one of his own. I'll link it in the show notes for you it is called Traction and I really think that you guys will enjoy it okay well my vibe is you guys know I'm a true crime junkie I'm sick for it so there's a Netflix documentary it's a docu-series three parts that's going bonkers at the moment it's called American Nightmare so it's a true

Starting point is 00:13:32 story about a couple named Denise and Aaron I won't go too much into it but they're dubbed the real life gone girl so you remember the movie Gone Girl that went viral basically she's kidnapped from her home one night and completely gone missing in the most unusual of ways. Like the kidnapping is something that feels like it should be a made up story. All eyes go onto the boyfriend, Aaron. He swears to God that he had nothing to do with it. And then it goes into depth about the police investigation and where things went wrong and what really happened. And I don't want to tell you too much because I don't want to spoil it because I hate a spoiler, but I was hooked the entire three episodes and at the end I was just left furious like I was absolutely

Starting point is 00:14:18 furious at the police department in America I've seen the first episode of this and I know producer Keisha has also watched quite a bit of it it is brilliant and I think the thing that is like and what you touched on Brit but it's the malpractice of the police and it's this idea that people are coming forward with their story and that they're not being believed by the police because they have an agenda around it. And the docu-series is actually them telling their story. So it's not like it's from a narration from someone else telling a story. It's them.

Starting point is 00:14:47 It is her sitting in what happened and reliving it. I have footage from the investigations and from the interviews and interrogations and it's truly one of the better true crime docu-series I've watched in a very long time. Do you know what I really love about it, and this is a little bit more from like a societal lens, is that I think we are seeing so much more content now that is this push back to the whole believe victims you know I know it's something that we really have humongous issues with here in Australia and this is an American

Starting point is 00:15:17 version of it but for so long victims have not been believed and I think it's also a very interesting insight into the policing of police we haven't had access to that for very long you know I think it's really this introduction of social media and entertainment companies like Netflix that have taken the power back if it weren't for social media or Netflix shining a light on situations like this I wonder how long we would have gone on with these corrupt systems and also victims spending so long not being believed and not being you know their investigations not being taken seriously so yeah it's the visibility right because back in the day the only way that you would ever get your story out like I remember like if something happened and

Starting point is 00:16:00 someone was angry about something it was like you're right into the paper or you're right into the morning show or something to try and get your story out there. The only other thing which I think is important to note is that it kind of ties into this idea that when you're not a perfect victim, which we know that in cases of domestic violence, in cases of sexual assault, it is very rare that there is a perfect victim. What this kind of unpacks is that when you are an imperfect victim, when you've done things that maybe the police see as being not exactly how you should or shouldn't have behaved, the likelihood of being believed is even lower. It's truly wild and it's one of those things that you have to see to believe. We'll link that in show notes and that

Starting point is 00:16:38 is on Netflix. The one that I went, I'm going to keep this short and snappy because I feel like some people are going to agree and some people are going to deeply, deeply disagree. My unsubscribe for the week is Salt Burn. I have watched it and I don't really care for it. And I think the grave scene and the bath scene, just too weird for me. But second to that, I felt as though the chemistry between the two main actors being best friends I didn't think that the chemistry was believable and I say this because the main actor Jacob Elordi he is this beautiful successful he is the most popular kid at university he is ridiculously wealthy like it goes into kind of his family and how insanely wealthy his family is and he befriends the most socially awkward

Starting point is 00:17:24 is really hard to connect with and I just didn't believe that the chemistry between them and I think it's because they were trying to establish that they had this like deep friendship but all the establishment of the deep friendship was done through weird movie montage flashbacks but when it comes to the dialogue between the two characters there was nothing convincing about it at all I completely disagree with you I don't think that was the plot at all I think what they were trying to lead you to believe is you're made to feel that someone is going to die right like you know but you don't know who you don't know who is going to turn and be the killer or the baddie in this my guess was that he was there this nerdy guy and it was going to result in a hunt like they

Starting point is 00:18:02 were going to release him on the grounds and everyone got to track him down and hunt him to kill him because he's a nobody with no family that was what I was led to believe and that's what I picked up from the show so I think that you and I picked up two very different things I'd love to know what everyone else's opinion was as they were watching it yeah see the reason why I find that so interesting is because I thought it was really obvious what was happening I know it's being like one of the most viral and widely watched movies at the moment and it's been very very loved I did not love it I would kind of got to the end of it and I was like that was weird and I want my hour and a half back now I wish I'd watched something else I haven't watched it yet

Starting point is 00:18:35 but I've just heard that it's sick I've just heard that it's weird you have to be careful who you watch it with because that can get awkward just don't watch it with your mom or your dad and then don't go and have a bath afterwards. Okay. All right. Let's get into the questions. Question number one. I have a beautiful friend. She's married and in a same-sex relationship. She has one toddler and is pregnant with her second baby. Both of them share the same biological father, a sperm donor. I recently became good friends with a different mom friend through my husband and her baby is also the product of a sperm donation due to her husband's fertility issues. All of that is amazing and I am so happy for everyone, but the kicker is that the two

Starting point is 00:19:19 children of my two different mum friends look identical. I'm talking eerily similar. Both are pretty vocal and upfront about their IVF and sperm donation stories and the donor information they have shared with me so far is crazy similar. I won't go into too much detail for you, but essentially the donor is the same nationality, the same height, the same age, the same hair colour, eye color choices etc do i bring it up with either of them it seems entirely possible but i don't really know what to do because the kids look so alike oh we have never had a question like this we have never had a question like this well this is the one that brit and i kind of got into a bit of a not an argument but a heated disagreement about so it wasn't either we just disagreed it

Starting point is 00:20:07 Awesome. You're making it sound like we have each other's throat. Okay. So I have a girlfriend. Her name is Jess. She's recently had a baby with her partner, Vanessa, two of my closest friends. They've gone through and chose to have a known sperm donor. And so I called Jess because I was like, this is a conversation, which I mean, we can give our opinions on, but we're not living this. And I think it's very easy when you're on the other side of it to go like, should I have this conversation with them? Shouldn't I? And not to say that my friend speaks for any same-sex couple or anybody who has gone through the donor process, but I do think that she had some very important points to make. And so I wanted to play

Starting point is 00:20:44 her response for you. I don't really see the point of bringing it up with either of them. Like both of them are obviously in complete family units. Like the straight couple is obviously a complete family unit. The same-sex couple is a complete family unit. I think for a lot of people, the reason that they go with anonymous sperm donors rather than known donors is because they're not interested in having an extra third party in their lives. And so the fact that they have a sperm donor becomes pretty inconsequential. It's not something that they think about. It's not something that comes up day to day. So I guess this reminder, both for the gay couple and the straight couple that they were unable to start their family on their own. It's unnecessary and

Starting point is 00:21:31 potentially even a little bit painful. It's really hard to say, and obviously it depends on the couple, but I'd say they probably don't really need or want this sharing of information, not to mention the fact that they probably don't even know the name. The question of knowing the name of the sperm donor, when you go through a sperm bank, you actually don't even get their name or photo, you just get a baby photo and there's medical history. That's it. So unless they can match up the baby photo and see if they have the same one, it's potentially just going to leave a bunch of unanswered questions anyway. So I mean, yeah, depending on the friendship, it might be worth bringing up, but I just don't really see the point. One thing I wanted to flag before we get

Starting point is 00:22:11 into fully unpacking this and like getting your opinion, Britt, or like how we would navigate this if we were in the situation is that in the question, it says biological father, right? The biological father in reference to sperm donor. Now, one thing that Jess mentioned after we had this conversation, and I think it's so important because it can be so easy to say the wrong thing without meaning to say the wrong thing, without meaning no offense, because clearly the question wasn't written with any offense in mind. But I guess it's that whole adage that once you know better you do better if you're going to talk about someone's donor sperm don't talk about it in relation to being a biological father or a dad just remove father dad from any type of dialogue

Starting point is 00:22:55 that you have around this because that's not what they are they made a sperm donation and those two things are completely separate and that can be really invalidating to any family who's been through the process of sperm donation or egg donation as well it's a really good point for you to bring up laura and for jess to have brought up because when we were talking about this i was also referring it to as like you know well biological father sperm donor I was putting them together without even thinking that that could be offensive or not the right thing to say but I totally understand why it is because we know what a father is and should be and at the end of the day they did do a sperm donation and then that was their relationship finished like there

Starting point is 00:23:32 is no relationship which I think is really important to know it's such a tricky situation because she's saying that she has two good friends two very good friends that she sees often I mean if she's written this in, she genuinely thinks they could be from the same donor. I guess the question she's facing is, will it be offensive or bring up something or be hurtful? B, what if they're in a situation where they would want to know if their child has a genetic relation out there through this donor? Obviously it would be like a half relation. Would you want to know? And I guess that's the way, the best way to do it is throw it in as that hypothetical, like, well crazy is that crazy like would you want to know is that you know that's what I would do

Starting point is 00:24:12 feel it out and you're going to get the vibe from whatever they say they're either going to be like oh hell no like could you imagine the hassle or they're going to be like well yeah maybe if they've got some sort of biological connection out there that could be cool like I think you're just going to feel it out I completely agree and I know that it's one of those things where one person's perspective and opinion doesn't cover everybody's experiences and everybody who has gone through the process of having a donor to have a baby is going to feel differently around their own family, their own unit, their own experience, how they're raising their children, what participation that donor has in that child's life, whether it's absolutely nothing at all, or whether they're

Starting point is 00:24:51 an active, potentially uncle figure or auntie figure or whatever. Like there's so many variations of how this could present. And so I think to give one wash answer of saying this is the right or wrong way would not be a just way to approach this question. The only thing I do want to reiterate is what good would come of it. What is going to be the main benefit, especially when the things that you're going off, the indicating factors are pretty broad and open ideas. They're like height, nationality, the eye color. Let's say, okay, maybe if it was a very unique and rare height, nationality and eye color, but if it's a 40 year old Caucasian man who was six foot with green eyes or blue eyes or whatever, I would say that there's probably a lot of them out there who

Starting point is 00:25:35 have donated sperm over the many years. The other thing as well to keep in mind, and this is, I find this so interesting around like the rules and regulations within Australia and sperm donation is that for men who are doing sperm donation, they can only donate to up to 10 families. So they're only allowed to create and contribute to 10 separate families. And that's also to like minimize any crossover. Like imagine growing up and being a child who was from a donor and then meeting another child who was from a donor. And then it turns out that you've all got the same donor parent, which has happened in the States. And that's wild. So in Australia, there's so many more legislations and rules around how many donor families can be created. And the reason for that

Starting point is 00:26:17 is to try and minimize this type of thing. Ultimately, unless you can kind of say, well, this is going to be of benefit to everyone in the picture. It's going to be of benefit to the parents because the children are too young to do anything with that information yet, then I don't think that you should be the donor vigilante and take it upon yourself to make sure that everyone knows all the information because sometimes people going into this decision simply don't want to know the information. Interesting. Interesting. Also, I would love to know if this goes ahead and you have this conversation, please come back and tell us what the outcome of this is because we need to know. I know what to do. What? Invite them both to like a barbecue or a party or

Starting point is 00:26:55 something and let them work it out for themselves. Let them look at each other and be like, your kid looks very much like my kid. That is fucking cruel. Do not do that. That is a terrible, terrible idea. This just happens spontaneously. Don't take that advice. Question number two. I've been with my partner for nearly five years. It's been a super stable relationship and he's someone that I can talk openly with about anything. However, I have begun to realize that we are super different in many ways. He's really introverted and runs out of social battery fast. He prefers staying at home and gaming with friends, whereas I love camping, going on road trips, adventures, traveling. We've tried some of these activities together and it uses up his energy pretty quick

Starting point is 00:27:36 or it just ends with him in a migraine from the sun and he hates it. I don't like gaming. It worries me that our differences will get the better of us long term, but I still really like him. For milestones such as birthdays and anniversaries, he isn't very good at planning anything or getting any gifts and says that he has no time. Are shared interests really important in relationships? What would you do in this situation? How do I know if I'm in the right relationship? I don't know. I think that there's two ways to answer this because it's only an issue if it's an issue to you, right? Like you can date someone who is completely different to you, who has really different interests who loves gaming and if gaming's not an issue to you and you guys are

Starting point is 00:28:18 able to connect in other ways and you get your cup filled like to say you love going camping or you love road trips whatever it is and you do that with your girlfriends and you fill your cup with your girlfriends and then your boyfriend provides xyz to you different things that's fine but if it's becoming an issue if you've gotten to a place where you think that the differences are too big that you're not able to connect on anything because you know it may not just be the fact that he's introverted it sounds like it's the fact that he's not investing enough time or consideration or thought into you so when you say like oh he's he's introverted but then he's also really bad at this thing and this thing and this thing you kind of haven't told me anything that

Starting point is 00:28:57 he's good at you haven't told me anything that the two of you have together that's a redeemable part of your relationship and so I would say to you before you make a decision that you can't be together or that, like the differences are too great. I would have a think about, okay, well, what are the amazing things that he brings to the relationship? What are the things that I love about him? What are the things that we share together that are incredible, that are worth valuing? And are there more of those things than what there are negatives? And can you then therefore overcome the things and the differences that you have? That would be my very first thing to say to do. Okay. I'm going to come in and say, I'm not vibing this relationship. And the reason

Starting point is 00:29:38 that is fucking hard for it. The reason now stick with me. The reason I say that is because I actually do think that you do have to have some commonality and enjoy the same kinds of hobbies. I think you do have to have that connection because relationships change with age and what period you are in your life. And what I mean by that is, yes, you can fill your cup in other ways with girlfriends. Like you can go camping with girlfriends because you love it and your partner doesn't want to but that only works for so long that only works when you're young you're a bit more carefree you got the time you don't have kids you're not married you're not in a job that is so stressful and hectic when you go into that second transition of life it's different you don't have

Starting point is 00:30:20 the time that you used to and you need to have that connection with your partner I truly believe that you need to enjoy doing things together it doesn't have to be everything obviously you are still going to have friendships outside of him but I do think it's important that you find some commonality is he bringing what you need in other capacities which he's not like you have said he doesn't even plan anniversaries or get you gifts because he has no time that is a pretty lame ass excuse to me like everyone has time to make someone in their life that they love feel special like it's like when someone says I've got no time to respond to a text bullshit everyone has time if you want to do something you can do something if you want to make your loved one feel loved

Starting point is 00:30:59 it could be a note that you've left on the table for them there are ways to connect and make somebody feel special and loved that don't take a lot of time don't take a lot of effort don't take a lot of money well what it is right when someone says i don't have the time what they actually mean is is that you're not the top of the priority list because time is reflective of priorities if someone has the time to do something whatever xyz is that is because that is their priority and we find ways in order to move things that are important to us back up to the top of the list. So like, don't get me wrong. Like there will be times in life, in relationships, ebbs and flows where your relationship can't always be the priority. And that might be because work is

Starting point is 00:31:37 really pressing or there is something else that requires more of your energy. But even in saying that, that can't be the constant because if it is the constant all the time, and it's something we covered with Mark Manson on Tuesday's episode, what that means is, is that if it's the constant all the time, it's not necessarily then the priority. Because I do kind of agree with you, but I guess I don't want to make like big grand sweeping statements about their relationship without having more context because I think that there's a lot of negatives in here without adding in the positives and sometimes we can be very negatively geared about something we can focus on okay well they didn't do this they didn't do this they didn't do this but we don't actually

Starting point is 00:32:14 look at well what did they do to satisfy other areas and other things that are important to me the only thing I want to say kind of like to sum this up gaming has a real negative connotation I think for anyone who's not a gamer when you hear the word gaming you instantly think like like that's so isolating you're not putting any time into our relationship because you're out there doing this thing in a silo which seems really anti-social and I guess over the years especially because I have people in my life who game and who are really into it I also kind of understand that for people who are introverted who are really into that world it's not necessarily as anti-social as what one might think it can be a way of deregulating for someone who's introverted

Starting point is 00:32:54 or they may have friends online who they play against. So in the same way that you might go out and go to the pub or you might go out and hang out with your friends, that might be his version of hanging out with his friends. So it doesn't necessarily have to be a negative thing. It's only a negative thing if it's impacting your relationship because he's prioritising it over spending time together. No, to be clear, I'm not telling anyone to put any relationship in the bin.

Starting point is 00:33:18 Like no one's gone in the bin yet. I mean, we have before, but this is not it. And there is nothing wrong with gaming. these are separate issues like that's not what the issue here is the issue here is that there's just no connection now I'm not saying end the relationship but you do need to go through a bit of a process first I think there is no reason you can't sit down and communicate firstly let's break it down let's do the you don't feel the affection you don't feel the attention and the love sit down and say that say like you know I don't care that you game that doesn't bother me but if I'm not

Starting point is 00:33:50 getting what I need from any other aspect, it's really starting to affect me. And you know, when it's the anniversary or birthday, I don't need big presents. I don't need big gifts, but I don't feel like I don't feel like I'm important. And I think you can have that conversation. The problem in relationships only start to intensify when you've had those conversations and there's no change. So you don't immediately, people aren't mind readers. If you're not communicating, they're not going to know. The next thing I wanted to say is write down, print out like a humongous list of activities that you could do. Different sports, different hobbies. It might be park golf, whatever. He might love going to an arcade and you might find that you enjoy that as well. Write down a huge

Starting point is 00:34:30 list. Start to go through it together until you find something that you both enjoy. And if you go through a mega list and there is not one thing that you guys can connect on and he's still not putting in the effort, then yeah, put him in the bin. In the bin. Sorry, sweetheart. You need to get in the bin now. That's it. That's our relationship. Life Uncut said so. Question number three. I go to a prestigious university and everyone there is well off and always very posh and well-dressed. Think Rolex, Cartier, Louis Vuitton and the works. I've had to fake it till I make it my whole way through trying to fit in. I am often embarrassed in public by my family they're polar opposite to me and a very loud and obnoxious very Aussie if you know what I mean

Starting point is 00:35:16 I'm a very self-conscious person and it'll ruin my day if I think someone is judging me and I'm scared that this will happen I don't want to offend them and I love them but is it okay for me to ask them to act differently and tone it down for my sake any help is appreciated oh I feel really sorry for you and the reason why I say I feel sorry for you is not because of the people that your family is. It's because of how insecure you must be as a person that you feel as though you need to change the people around you. Because the thing is every single person, everyone has someone in their family who's fucking a bit wild and a bit odd. Do you know what I mean? But they're not a reflection of who you are as a person necessarily. And

Starting point is 00:36:00 there's nothing that you've said about your parents or your family that makes me go, oh, they're a bad person. That's why you'd want them to change or they're humiliating. That's why you'd want them to change. They say things that are racist or inappropriate. I would understand if that was the premise of it. But if it's just because they're loud and they're vibrant and they're a bit crazy and cut from a slightly different cloth to the people that you spend time with at university, I would say that that is inherently deeply judgmental. And I would be prioritizing my family over people who come from labels and brands and care about things that are extremely superficial in the long run. So I think that the place where you need to start

Starting point is 00:36:38 is on yourself and is on your self-worth and is on your self-identity and it is on your values and figuring out what is the most important thing to you in life. And if the most important thing to you in life is fitting in, then this will always be a problem for you. A hundred percent. This makes me upset to think about this family. And that's, again, we're making the assumption that they're not homophobic. They're not racist. They're not out picketing the streets. If they're just a bit of a rough Aussie Bogan kind of family that don't walk around in Rolexes and Cartier spoiler 1% of people walk around in Rolex and Cartier like that is not a common thing it's also not relatable like who fucking cares and also the feeling that you have to fake it until you

Starting point is 00:37:20 make it to fit in like I know that that's a separate conversation here because one side of this is about your family embarrassing you and the second side is faking it till you make it because everyone else is wearing all this stuff. That is saying more about you than anyone else in this situation. You do not need fancy things to impress people and you do not need fancy things to win friends. I think this also is an age thing and I don't want to sound ageist when I say this, but you're at university and I know that they are very impressionable years where everyone wants to fit in. Like everyone wants to have the friendship group and have those strong connections with their friends the reason why I say I think that this is also age related is because I think when I was

Starting point is 00:37:59 younger I probably felt a little bit the same and I don't say that I ever wanted my family to change or anything but I sometimes felt like I needed to prepare my friends for like how different my dad is Terry Byrne or how my mum can say one-liners which I would have been like oh my god how embarrassing like please mum stop talking and I felt probably when I was younger that I needed to prepare people a little bit for the uniqueness of my family but like now as someone who's 37 who has my own kids I don't fucking care anymore like my parents are so different and we've kind of navigated the ebbs and flows of our relationship I'm so proud of the people that they are and if anybody ever kind of looked at them and judged them for not being as polished or the version of

Starting point is 00:38:43 what they would expect I think that that says so much about the other person and I would never want someone in my life who judges my family. And I guess for me, this probably wasn't so much around friends, but it was around boyfriends. I remember having feelings of like, oh, will my boyfriends like my family? And will I need to kind of give them a bit of a heads up around like, you know, the ways in which my dad communicates or the way in which my mom communicates and kind of give them the backstory in order for them to not feel judgmental. Now, when I think of that, like, that's fucking crazy. And I guess it's because the people who you have in your life, like, your family, your parents, your siblings, they are their own people and they are not a direct

Starting point is 00:39:23 reflection of who you are as a person. And I really do think, I mean, maybe it's a case of, and I don't want to say speaking to a therapist because maybe that feels a bit much, but like doing a bit of inner work, like reading up on sort of like your own values and understanding what's important to you as a person, figuring out are these the type of people that you want in your life as your lifelong friends? If you feel like you're always playing a game where you have to play up being someone different to who you actually are is that not going to then just breed more insecurity in you as a person all right bring us home laura all right last question and i find this one a tricky one being a mom myself who also sometimes gives their kid too much screen time

Starting point is 00:40:01 all right one of my closest friends has an almost one year old baby her partner and her are the type of people who love having the tv on in the background at their house most of the day think music videos or sport it's kind of just background noise for them i've noticed that since having their bub, they have continued to do this. I don't think that the baby is getting direct screen time, but I would say they're getting a significant amount of indirect screen time. For example, my friend has commented to me before how much the baby loves watching TV and in videos she shares of the baby, the TV is always on in the background. Now, I don't think my friend is aware that screen time is not recommended for children under two. I also

Starting point is 00:40:42 didn't know that. So my kids are also fucked. My question is, should I bring the screen time national guidelines to my friend's attention? And if so, how should I do this in a kind and nonjudgmental way? I absolutely know my friend would never intentionally do anything detrimental to the health and wellbeing of her baby. But I also know that if I was doing something unknowingly that might impact my child's well-being, I would want to be informed. I picture her walking in with like a 128-page document that's tied by string and she slaps it down on the table. She's like, here's the national TV guidelines. That is so funny. I don't think you can bring the national guidelines to her. I really don't, even though you're a good

Starting point is 00:41:25 caring friend. And I also find this to be a tricky place. Now, I don't feel like I can comment that heavily because I don't have kids. So Laura, I definitely want your opinion on this being a mum, but I don't think it's your place to parent another person's children and I could be getting this wrong right I haven't done the research into just how detrimental it is for a child under two to watch screen time like what is it actually doing you know is it giving them brain cancer because there's a difference with hey I feel like I've been seeing you leave your child out in the sun a lot with no sunscreen on so I just feel like that's not the right thing to do yes I would be day in that for sure. If your friend's letting their kid burn all the time in the sun, that's

Starting point is 00:42:06 different to some background TV. So I feel like it's one of those pick your battle things. I don't know. I could be wrong. What do you reckon? I don't feel like I can comment because I have two children and they have watched and do watch TV and the TV's on in our house. And sometimes it's background TV. And sometimes we just have the TV on with music playing because Spotify plays through our TV. Look, I think that there are lots of ways that you can fuck your kids up and a bit of extra screen time is probably not going to do deep fundamental damage. Now, look, if you want to know the Australian regulations on screen time, it's that children under 18 months shouldn't have any screen time at all. They should not see a TV, which is great. Don't let them watch Salt Burn.

Starting point is 00:42:46 Yeah, look, Monsters Inc is also apparently inappropriate to learn that one the hard way. I think that that is, it's great in theory. For a lot of parents, it's unachievable and keeping complete screen time away from your kids from under 18 months. And I'm talking like, you might be breastfeeding and be on your phone. You might be doing something and the TV's on in the background. Like the majority of Australian households, that's pretty hard to manage. Does it mean that like you're setting your kid up and they're watching four hours of Cocoa Melon? That's a whole different thing. If that's what she was doing, then yeah, I would maybe say like, oh, how do you feel about screen time? Like, you know, like I noticed you don't care. But the thing is, is there are very

Starting point is 00:43:27 few mums and dads out there unless they have been living in a literal hole who don't know that screen time is a controversial topic, right? Everyone knows it. Everyone knows that, you know, putting a kid in front of a tablet or like, you know, having them watch a phone or a TV is not necessarily a good thing to do. I think TVs are better than say iPhones or YouTube, which are very quick moving. You can change the content continuously. It's a different thing having free to air playing in the background or having like Spotify music playing in the background versus propping your kid up and putting, you know, like I said, four hours of Cocomelon on. But I also think mums get shamed for fucking everything. Like it is hard being a mum. It is

Starting point is 00:44:09 hard finding time for yourself. It is hard keeping kids entertained, distracted whilst you're potentially also juggling work, juggling everything else in your life. And so I think for some people it is something that is used and lent on because it is an easier way of managing and so I would say that she's probably aware of it I would say she probably knows that it's not the best thing to do and all you bringing it up is going to make her feel super judged it's probably not impacting especially if it's ambient tv in a way that you seem to be as concerned about because there's so many worse ways to pair it than than a bit of screen time I think yeah totally and I just tried to imagine because I always try and put myself in that situation but I tried to imagine if I came to

Starting point is 00:44:51 your house one day Laura and brought that up to you if the girls are watching tv and I was like hey do you think that the girls have been watching a bit too much tv like I don't know if you know it's really bad for them it would not go down well and I know that and we are very close I just know that you feel like well you fucking take them then what do you want me to do like I think that this you know I said it earlier pick your battle I don't think this is your battle I know that there will be some mums who will be listening to this and they will think well that's a shit way of parenting you shouldn't have your kids watching screen times and I get it I get it you are a better mum than me that's okay in the competition of who's the best mum you can be better than me

Starting point is 00:45:27 and I know it comes back down to that idea of priorities blah fucking blah blah blah but there are some times where I have to get xyz done and having the tv on enables me and allows me to do that. And I think so long as you're using it in a mediated way, alongside craft activities, going to the park, giving your kid other ways of being stimulated and you're supervising the stuff that they're watching. I just don't see how bad it's going to be. Do you know what I mean? Like what's the trade off? Also, I think about me growing up, like, well, yes, we didn't have tablets. My mom didn't give a fuck about screen time. That TV was on from the second we woke up until the second we went to bed i'm talking all day every day she never stopped me from i was

Starting point is 00:46:10 watching south park when i was seven like i'm fine guys everything is fine my mom was a single mom of three kids that's why the tv was on all the time she couldn't manage she wasn't managing and so like it was a way of keeping people occupied knowing that they're in a certain room that they needed them to be in and it just you you worked out like relatively fine everything has been semi okay so far like you're like a solid five out of ten a hundred percent like room for improvement but that's always a good place to be I like to think of myself things turned out better than they could and that's always a positive that's a positive anyway guys I hope that's a takeaway for you all today also let us know what you think if you disagree with

Starting point is 00:46:46 anything that we've said if you would approach it differently and I think especially the screen time one I'd be so interested to know from other mums how you feel about it or what you would want from your friends especially when we laugh but especially when it does come from a well-meaning place what you would like that is it from us guys if you have a question that you want to write in to ask uncut send it to our dms on instagram just put ask uncut at the top and you might make it on the podcast for some very unqualified advice from the two of us but send them in also if you haven't accidentally unfiltered for our tuesday's episode and you guys can subscribe to the podcast wherever you're listening go and press that little plus button because that would help us

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