Life Uncut - Just A Bunch of Miserable Childless Cat Ladies

Episode Date: July 29, 2024

Hey Lifers,What're your thoughts on the skateboarding in the Olympics? We're hooked!Britt has had an old roommate come to visit and it's got her reminiscing on the good old nostalgic days of stitching up a housemate when they bring home a date. The men (human and canine) in Laura's life keep on sh*tting in inappropriate places but it's bringing a lot of joy to the Life Uncut family! Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance previously made some outlandish comments that included the country being run by “a bunch of childless cat ladies”. He's joined the conservative Megyn Kelly show on Friday and somewhat doubled down on the commentary. It's a story that now has Jennifer Anniston, Hilary Clinton and Opera involved so we thought we'd throw in our two cents. It had us asking a few questions: -Do you think it shifts voter’s perspectives on who will be best to run a country if they have children or not?-Do your perspectives on how you see the world shift when you have children?-Are you more ‘entitled’ to a vote if you have a kid that will live in the world that we are creating policies for? We spoke about being child free by choice with Danni Duncan here You can watch us on Youtube Find us on Instagram Join us on tiktok Or join the Facebook Discussion Group Tell your mum, tell your dad, tell your dog, tell your friend and share the love because WE LOVE LOVE! xxSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 Cammeraygal land. Hi guys and welcome back to another episode of Life Uncut. I'm Laura. I'm Brittany and we have Olympic fever. Do we? What? Is it fever?

I don't know. We've been talking about the Olympics all morning. I don't think I have a fever for the Olympics. Maybe I shouldn't say that because I know that the Olympics are exciting and I know that it's the games that brings the world together. But I have seen very little except for the handball and the skateboarding, both of which are very obscure, but I was into it. Is that just because the skateboarding was playing

when we walked into work this morning? No, it was last night. I came home and the Olympics were on the TV and it was skateboarding, but I didn't know. So there was an Olympic Australian skateboarder. Her name is Chloe. She's only 14. Imagine, what were you doing at 14?

I don't think I want to say it actually on here. No, I was nothing. I was probably watching Nickelodeon. Nickelodeon, Nickelodeon, Nickelodeon, Nickelodeon, Nickelodeon. One fine day when a wolf met a parrot, baby was born. A little star, a new hoop, a new crab, frog. It's really keen. That's what we do.

Little cat, dog, cat, dog. Sorry, that was me. Cat, dog. Alone in the world with a little cat, dog. I think we know what we both were doing at 14. I mean, no, so the Olympic skateboarding is one of those things where it's like it's such a random thing. You're like, I didn't think I would like to watch skateboarding.

But once you start, you're hooked. Chloe, Australian, 14 years old, and last night she was in tears because she didn't set the record or whatever she was trying to do. But amazing. If I could have been half the person that she is at 14, I would be more of a person now. So there's this. This makes me sound random, and I don't know how I started following her

why, but for years I've been following a skateboarding girl on Instagram. Her name is Sky Brown. I've been following her since she was 10 years old. She's one of those people that is like a freak of nature at their sport. She is the youngest ever British, maybe even Olympian out of any country. But at 13, at the last Olympics, she won medals for skateboarding. She was 13 years old. So she's back there now, obviously four years later, but she's incredible. And I like, She's one of those people that pops up on my Instagram all the time and I'm like, I can't believe I'm still following this random 12-year-old skateboarding girl.

But I'm not mad about it. I'm not mad because I'm jealous at her skill. Like the girl has skills. Okay, well, I feel like a lot of people are checking in and out of the Olympics this year and we will talk about this a little bit more, not specifically the skateboarding. Sorry for the obscure start. No, I love it.

But there is so much that's happening in the world at the moment. We also want to talk about the situation that has come up across social media online between JD Vance, Kamala Harris, Jennifer Aniston, Oprah, and also Hillary Clinton. Who would have thought that all those people would be put into the one basket? But first, Britt, how was your weekend? My weekend, actually, I had a wonderful weekend. I had the most random thing happen to me. And this is one of those things I think is like, how do you know you're friends with someone? Like really, really good friends with someone. You know, when people used to say, you know, you're good friends with someone

if they rock up to your house and they go straight to the fridge. Or, you know, you're friends with someone where they don't knock on the door and they just open it. No, my little missus, you know, you're really good friends with someone when you don't have to clean for their arrival that's it like if you can I think you should always clean for them no if you can have someone come to your house and you haven't had to worry about putting things away then that's a real friend I don't know maybe I'm different because this is like a true testament of friendship but I also cleaned when I heard she was coming so my friend messaged me on Thursday uh she lives in London her name's Laurie she messaged me out of the blue she goes you home tonight and this is like in the afternoon

and I was like, yeah, I'll be home tonight. Just have a couple of meetings. I was like, why? You want to call? And she's like, no, I'm coming. And this is from London. I was like, what do you mean coming? She's like, I'm orgasming right now. Yeah. Yeah. She's like, literally. I got the womanizer 2000 and just really wanted to let you know it's great. She's married. No, she's like, I'll be there in a few hours. I got a last minute flight from London to Sydney. So I'm currently in Perth. I was like, do you need somewhere to stay? And she's like, oh my God, that'd be great. Thank you. I was like, okay, I'll see you in a couple hours and I was like fuck so I actually did clean the house completely clean the house see when I

say clean the house I think it's a different thing when you have kids like if I have people come over of course but that's like a stress yeah that if I have to clean the house for them if they're a real friend they just accept that the house can be messy and I don't have to fix it for them I remember going back to your house when you used to live at my house and you had just had the kids and I remember it was like a hazard to get in because there were like toy cars everywhere and I was like if I step on the wrong thing I'm gonna break my neck like it was it was like a maze to get in but it was so nice so she's still there now she came on Thursday but it was one of those those really wholesome weekends or times of my life that I didn't know I needed so we've been friends for

20 years we used to live together in London I've never just sit down and I'm in their presence for a long period of time where you just rehash old memories and it just filled my cup so much we're talking about when we used to live together in London it's semi don't listen to this Ben semi made me miss my single days for a hot second only because of the fun and mischief used to get up to but we used to live together in Notting Hill which sounds fancier than it is Notting Hill sounds super fancy but we were this tiny little apartment but we wanted to live next to the palace yeah your expats living there so of course you were living like the smallest apartment we wanted to pretend we were living a better life than we did anyway we used to just like go on dates I mean

when I was in my 20s I lived in Lismore next to the bowling club so same same thing same we used to go out, Laurie and I used to go out and we only had this two bedroom apartment. And when one of us was on a date, we'd have like these codes. If we were going to bring the date home, we'd send a message to each other really quickly. Like we're in the taxi, it would be like a code blue or something. And that person's job was quickly to set up the house. We had this rule where we would turn all the lights off. We had one lamp we turned on and we would turn on fairy lights outside. And we had fairy lights in the house because that's the age we were at. And I know I'm screaming how old I am. Okay. Britt was telling me this story last night where she was like, I would tell her,

get the room ready because I'm bringing a guy home and she would go and turn the fairy lights on and Matt was in the car next to me and he was like tell me one 20 year old man that wants to fuck to fairy lights okay Matt lots of people wanted to fuck to fairy lights when I leave the palace chicks are like I love a fairy light and men are like what is going on here I'll fuck to anything the fairy lights were used because have you seen down lighting it's not flattering Anyway, the other part of the setup was the music. So we had like a boom box and we used to have a playlist. So when you'd come back, we had a place that would set.

You just always put it on. You know it was good. And the reason you have to have a playlist, I know there's a lot of people cringing, but when you're a flatmate in a tiny flat, you have to have something draw out the music. So the person always put the playlist on, but we couldn't stop laughing this one time. There was this guy that I was really, really crushing on and Laurie knew that. So we're in the lounge, you're getting freaky. she knows she's not allowed to come out of the room but then the music would just change

not from playlist the music went rogue and the music would go to like the titanic theme song like literally the titanic theme song how does the titanic theme song go again that song my heart will go on my heart will go on Celine Dion oh she's having a real moment bring it back well she was having a moment when I was also having a moment yeah you could you could have sex to my heart will go on like I'm not against it I don't hate it no especially if you were in that position where your arms are out like a T. All I could think about was the hand that goes on the window and the sweat that like drags down the window. And I was just like, in my head, I started to laugh because I knew what she was doing. I knew she was in the other room controlling the playlist

when I was having my big moment. I was trying not to giggle, but I was like, okay, she's only going to do it to one song and then it will hit back in. So I'll get in. So I'm grinding away doing whatever I'm doing and then the next song is like can you feel the love tonight and I'm mortified at this point she's going rogue and she's just playing every like embarrassing messed up love song that you can imagine and I'm like did the guy say anything at this point was he like interesting playlist it went soft he did not can you feel the love tonight no I can no longer feel the love tonight whatsoever I don't want to story top you but I do have a story that is so similar to this. It was 10 years ago. I'd started dating a musician. I had two housemates and they were

shit starers. And there was one night that we came home. They'd known that we'd been on a date. And this is in the early stages too. We didn't know each other that well. They'd known that we'd come home. Things had like heated up and out of nowhere. So there was no music on. Out of nowhere, they started playing his music really, really, really loudly. So as you're having sex with him, his own music was playing. He kind of stopped it because, like, to me it didn't really register because, like, it was just a song, you know. Wait, wait, wait.

His own music. As in the guy that you're from music. Oh, my God. So there was no music on and it didn't really register to me because I didn't know his music word for word. But he stopped at one point and just looked at me and I just thought that they'd started playing music because they wanted to drown a bit of sound out.

And he was like, um. Is that the greatest kiss? No. Do they know that I'm here? And I was like, yeah, yeah, why? He was like, can you hear me singing? That's so embarrassing. I was so embarrassed.

Yeah, no, he fucked to his own soundtrack. Do you know what? I reckon he probably did that anyway. Don't you reckon he comes back when he brings chicks back to the house? I hope not. I would really hope not. I reckon I would. I reckon if I was an artist that had, like, greatest hits.

I believe that. I would 100% put that on in the background and be like. Put your own podcast on to bed. No, no, I would never do that. But I would just spritz laugh over and over and over. That is a mood killer. Oh, okay. Well, look, I mean, my weekend was actually, my weekend was good in some ways and then

terrible in other ways. As you guys know, I've spoken about it quite a bit recently. My stepdad, he's really, really unwell. So we spent time at the hospital on Sunday, but on Sunday morning, something very funny happened. So let's talk about the funny things and not the sad things. so Sunday morning we went to a friend's house who is renovating so we went to their house that's like in the midst of a renovation and because they're renovating near us they were like oh

just go get the keys go and have a look like we want you to see where we're putting things and the layout of the house and they're really excited about it and we went picked up the keys and we went over and we were walking through the house and also takes me to the conversation that we had last week on the podcast around can tradie shit in the house if they're working on it okay but imagine this this house is fully gutted right like the toilets are still on because they have no portaloos so like everything is still functioning but they've gutted the walls and the interiors and the floors because they're doing like a light cosmetic reno so halfway through we we got there and matt had just finished a burrito as we've arrived

imperative to the story. And a coffee. And Matt's coffee is a triple large latte. So he has like a three shot latte every single day. So in we are, we're walking around this house and it looks great. We've been there for a while now. And all of a sudden Matt goes, I'm just going to go to the toilet. So off he goes and he comes out and he is white, like completely white from the top down. And I'm like, what happened? And he goes, I just assumed. And I was like, you just assumed what and he's like I just assumed the water was still on because there's no port-a-loo here and I was like what do you mean he took a shit in their toilet and it did not flush there is no water in the I was like you just shit into a dry toilet so there wasn't toilet in the bowl there

was no water nothing nothing he didn't look he just went and sat down and did it he called our friend and our friend was like I'm not dealing with that and so he had to email the builder and say i'm so sorry because we couldn't find the water to turn the water back on you just put your hand in a bag like pick it up what do you do i just see he covered it in toilet paper padded it down shut the lid and then emailed the builder and was like i am so deeply sorry but i did a shit in your unflushable toilet downstairs that is he should have picked that up you can't leave a lot with what a plastic bag from where the burrito he just consumed it was paper oh my god the shit's still there today

those builders imagine coming in after a weekend like you had the weekend off you come into the side mexican there's this particular type and it's been there for two days laura you've just reminded me that we had someone writing about you and poo oh god what did i do we had someone writing about me and poo i'm gonna read it now i talk about poo a lot no this is so funny I'm so confused. So a listener wrote in and said, I just had my forever bestie call me to tell me that she was driving home from work in Bondi and stopped at a pedestrian crossing.

Suddenly she recognised the person and the dog walking across the road. Yes, I know what this is. It was none other than Laura and Buster. Now Laura had her hands full and on the phone while Buster was just walking across the crossing. With no lead as well. but I'll explain why in a second. Halfway across the road, Buster stops in the middle of the pedestrian crossing to take a giant shit. She said it was the funniest thing she has ever

seen. I hope Laura will bring this up because let me tell you, I nearly wet my pants. Let me tell you, Laura has not brought this up. Laura, we need to know. I went back and got it. Guys, this literal shit happens to me so often that this wasn't even, this didn't even register as a story to tell so okay this happened on Friday last week I was walking out I actually had just left the vet he has a slipped disc in his back he fell down the stairs at our house about three weeks ago and it's been getting progressively worse anyway on Friday he was not in a good way and I took him we took him to the vet and he's now on like muscle relaxants anyway he couldn't be on the lead because every additional pull and stuff is hurting his spine so I was walking back

across the pedestrian crossing and he wasn't on the lead I was on the phone to Matt being like okay he's got a slipped disc and he's got to be on this medication now and then I looked down he has stopped in the middle of the road the cars are on either side and I am mortified he's hunched over dropping a huge shit in the middle I'm actually really mortified so I didn't know what to do because I was like I don't want to pull him because he's in pain I ended up having to like pull him off the road and then one car went and then I had to run back and pick it up off the middle of the road half it was squished and the other half was still good to go what is with the men in your life at the moment i would die if i was halfway across the crossing and my dog took

a dump and i didn't have a bag and i and i it was a lot i would die it's also so thank you for sending that in that is exactly what happened he took a dump in the middle of pedestrian crossing and this lovely old man who was like also crossing the road at the same time goes oh don't worry love bit of an inconvenient timing isn't it thank you you're like if only you knew You're like, my life is so shit right now. Everything is falling apart. Something that I wanted to talk about, and I feel like this, no, I don't feel like it. It has. It has completely overrun every single media outlet that there is. The almost ecstatic excitement, I think, and change and the energy surrounding the fact that Kamala Harris is now in the

presidential election and she is running. I think it's very interesting how only a couple of weeks ago, we were talking about Donald Trump getting almost assassinated, right? And it feels like that is such a long distant memory. And what has overtaken it is this more current and more recent debate and conversation around Kamala Harris and J.D. Vance. I'm sure you have heard of this, but J.D. Vance, he's the Republican vice president candidate, and he has had some very choice things to say about a bunch of childless cat ladies who are running the country. In an interview in 2021, J.D. Vance had this to say. I want to take aim at the left, specifically the childless left. The rejection of the American family is perhaps the most pernicious and most

evil thing that the left has done in this country. Consider all of the next gen, Kamala Harris, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Cory Booker, AOC. They're different. They come from different walks of life, different parts of the country. What is the one thing that unites every single one of them? Not a single one of them has any children. A lot of people are unable to have kids for very complicated and important biological reasons, medical reasons, that can't have children. It's one thing to recognize that people don't have children through no fault or choice of their own. But it's something else to build a political movement,

invested theoretically in the future of this country, when not a single one of them actually has any physical commitment to the future of this country. At the time in 2021, he was called out for these comments, and then he doubled down on it only a couple of days later and had this to say. We're effectively run in this country via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless cat ladies

who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they've made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too. And it's just a basic fact. You look at Kamala Harris, AOC, the entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children. Rightly so.

People are fucking angry about this. But I do think it begs the question, which maybe a lot of people aren't familiar with, but why has this come back up? So this happened in 2021. We're obviously now in 2024. Like why is the media making a big, massive song and dance around this now? And the reason for that is because Hillary Clinton tweeted just the other day, and she was the one who brought this back to the surface. Her tweet said, what a normal, relatable guy who certainly doesn't hate women having freedoms. And then she posted just a direct quote, which said, the childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and have no direct

stake in America. This has gone on to have real prolific coverage. So Jennifer Aniston has jumped on the bandwagon and given her two cents about it. Oprah Winfrey has given her two cents about it. And it's created such a media fury. Now, I think that anybody and anyone who's listening to this would probably feel the same that we do around how negligible those comments are and how minimizing they are of women who have made the choice of their own volition not to have children. But I do think it's interesting the timing of which this has come back to the surface. And I do think that it is a very clever marketing tactic that has been taken in order to rewrite the big conversations that are happening in media at the moment.

Well, fast forward to last Friday when he was interviewed on The Megyn Kelly Show. This is what he had to say. I know the media wants to attack me and wants me to back down on this, Megyn, But the simple point that I made is that having children, becoming a father, becoming a mother, I really do think it changes your perspective in a pretty profound way. This is about criticizing the Democratic Party for becoming anti-family and anti-child. And I think it's profoundly weird and dangerous rhetoric. As you know, I think most parents would say professional achievements, whether you're a mom or a dad, all that stuff eventually fades away. the thing that you're most proud of is having kids, what your kids do, the relationship that

you have with your family. That is what I think brings the most meaning to life is family, not all these weird little accomplishments and degrees and everything else. I did go and listen to everything that he had to say. And I went back and watched it more in depth because the highlight reels that were going around the news were just the really, really bad bits about the crazy cat lady and being miserable because you don't have children. And wanting to make the entire population miserable as a byproduct of your own misery because you don't have children. But there was a part of me, and I will say it, there's a part of me that understands

what he was trying to say. There's a part of me that understands that he's saying, well, if you haven't experienced something and you will never experience it, do you completely, fully, wholly understand that situation? I do understand that on a level, but he shoots himself in the foot by being like a misogynistic fuckwit and making statements about being miserable with no children and the fact that you can only be proud of your life and feel whole if you've had kids like that last part where he says it's my favorite part where he says like your weird little achievements like degrees and things like that

well i like the weird little achievements like potentially being the president of the united states i think the big issue and the reason why there's such an uproar and maybe i feel a little bit differently to you about it brit but i listen i don't think so i think we're the same no i listen to the entire speech as well and I understand what he was trying to get across and that is that you know for a lot of people who have families being a parent is a one of the great achievements that you have in life I don't think anyone is debating that but I do think it comes into play the same conversation that we had around Butker and his speech at the graduation it's being told that that is your greatest achievement and I think that the second part which I don't agree with

He's saying that if you are someone who doesn't have children, that you only have stake in the game. You only have skin in the game if you know what it's like to be a parent, because then you can relate to people who have children and you can relate to the plight of families. That comment to me reeks of what Scott Morrison did when he stood up there and said, oh, you know, I spoke to my wife, Jenny, and she said, imagine if it was one of our daughters. I think it is a requirement of a politician to be able to have empathy, who live lives and have an existence that's completely different to them. So what he's saying is that unless you are a parent yourself, you don't have the skills to have empathy for somebody who lives a different life to you. But that means that if

you lack that empathy, how on earth are you able to represent the many different minorities that sit across a country? And as somebody that doesn't have kids, the fact that if I was in America, he's saying that I shouldn't have as much of a right to vote because I haven't had a child. gobsmacks me. Vance said that parents should have more voting power than childless Americans. Let's give votes to all children in this country, but let's give control over those votes to the parents of those children. When you go to the polls in this country as a parent, you should have more power. You should have more of an ability to speak your voice in our democratic republic than people who don't have children. Just because you don't have your own biological

children does not mean you don't have a stake in what happens in the future. The thing that I find really funny here is that Kamala Harris does have children, but they're stepchildren. She has two stepchildren that she has been very heavily involved in their lives for the better part of a decade. And her stepdaughter actually came out, her name's Ella. She actually came out and made a statement, which I thought was really sweet. Obviously she doesn't want to get mixed up in the politics. So it was very top line, but she just said, how can you be childless when you have cutie pie kids like Cole and I she's really doubling down making a point here that families don't all look the same yeah and I really loved to see it there were other people in the party

in Kamala's party who were affected directly and named by his statement by Vance's statement and they were in the middle of adopting kids like there are so many different ways a family can look which is what made me upset also listening to him say that you will not be truly happy until you have achieved a family and then that's all you're going to work towards I can't imagine how many women would have read that and been like what the fuck I think the thing though is that it does and I think that's why so many women in Australia are angry and like in my friendship groups you know I was at home with my mother-in-law talking about this is because in some way it does affect us like these views are held whether they're verbalized with such conviction they are held

throughout Australia as well and it's like it's heralding an idea of family but only a specific kind of family. It's like, if you've got 2.2 children and you're white and you're a perfectly married couple who've never been through divorce, you know, even if maybe that's how your family exists, it may not be how your parents' family existed. And I say this coming from a multiple divorced household, but now I have two children and a husband. So on paper, we match what would be considered like, you know, the ideal family in JD Vance's eye. But when I look at my family as a whole it is so fragmented and I think that it's the invalidation of people and how they live and show up in terms of family that is so problematic the media has so strongly latched

on to that one statement calling childless women cat ladies who are unhappy with the choices that they have made in their life and want to impart that misery onto other people even though that's the sentence that media has latched on to because if you do listen to the entire speech JD Vance talks about how obviously fertility issues are something that a lot of women don't have an option over, but he's made the assumption in that speech that either you can't have children because there is some medical reason that prevents you from being able to do it. Or if you make the alternate decision and you choose not to have children when you're able to, that you're selfish, that you're someone who's lacking. And the problem with this whole conversation, and I mean,

we've spoken about it loads in this podcast, is that that opinion is only reserved to women. No one thinks men are selfish if they don't have children. I mean, George Washington didn't have children and he wasn't being called a crazy cat man. It's the inference of the misogyny that's loaded into it, that if you're a woman and you don't want to have kids, that you must be a bad person who lacks the ability to show empathy for other people. Do you want to know where he really went wrong unknowingly when he made this comment he shot himself in the foot because he directed this comment to one of the most powerful people in the world without knowing oprah no taylor swift she's a childless cat lady like that is her jam that is who she is at her core and also with her

weird little achievements that she's created and she's got those weird little achievements like being the most powerful woman in the world like that cute little thing that she did yeah so true I don't even think of her. Yeah, mid-30s, no kids, knowingly owning the fact that she's a bit of a crazy cat lady, like in a good way. But what has happened now, the flow and effect is the Swifties have come out in force because they know, even though Taylor hasn't endorsed anyone publicly this election, last election she did publicly endorse Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

Like, so all the Swifties have already started tweeting and gotten on the bandwagon of supporting Harris, which I think is incredible. So now they have hundreds of thousands of extra people that are more determined to vote that might not have voted. On top of that, which is probably a very smart move from Kamala Harris, was her theme song for her first campaign ad was Beyonce's Freedom. So she now has Beyonce's fan base and she has Taylor Swift's fan base that are coming together.

Who knows who these people may have voted for before this happened, but now they are all publicly and mass rooting for Harris, which I love to see. Like the worst thing you can do is shit on a woman so publicly and somebody like Taylor Swift. Well, it's so interesting because I would have said up until a couple of weeks ago, and like, you know, we are not people who get on here and talk about politics very often, especially not American politics. Like it's fucking outside our wheelhouse. But in saying that we've spoken about being childless by choice numerous times on this podcast. We did a fucking fantastic episode with Dani Duncan last year. She's a social media influencer, but she has really kind of created an amazing community around herself

as a woman who has chosen to not have children. And if you are somebody who is unsure or still on the fence, I really implore you to go and listen to that episode and we'll put it in the show notes as well. Well, we've also spoken to Karina Irby and both the girls from Girls Gotta Eat all about being childless by choice. Like we have done many episodes on this. Yeah. And I think like there is and it still persists in today's society so deeply because you know danny spoke about it herself going back to this idea that a woman must be selfish to want to not have children and and any of those types of sentiments surrounding this the only thing that you can extrapolate is that the most important thing that we're ever going to do with our lives is reproduce

and that if you think it's something else if you think it is your career or you think it is your achievements, then you've only made that decision because the society pressures have forced you into making it. Now, the other thing that's really stand out from this whole campaign is saying that Kamala Harris is anti-family and anti-children. Know that the real reason why that is being touted is because they stand for abortion rights, for women to have the freedom of reproductive rights and to make choices over their own body. I also think, Laura, on top of that, these conversations aren't happening in silos. He's obviously been called out for something that said in 2021, and it's still happening now in 2024. But the marketing around this whole like

family versus anti-family thing, it's not just happening with these comments. It's happening with, like you said, the reproductive rights and a lot of those reproductive freedoms being taken away from women. They're wanting to take away trans rights and gay rights they have for a very long time. A lot of their policies that they're wanting to create if they come back into power have to do with removing immigrants. They've said that the Democrats have let all these terrorist sin. That's what Trump's been talking about very recently. It's also happening alongside the rise of this trad wife content that is this really glorified version of what life used to be like. It's the handmade tale. They've just wanted to put this filter. The world has gone mad. The

left have made this really woke, miserable, men and baby hating community. And we want to go back to the good old days. But the good old days were only good for straight white men. We're seeing this real division of two types of life that you could live. And if you vote left, you fit into the category of being child-free, cat lady and barbie cork. And I think they're trying to create this division of if you want to be a wholesome family that has this lifestyle of organic food and lots of children and good education, you have to vote right because the left are against that. Well, it goes back to these conversations around very traditionalistic values. And I think something that I found really fascinating of what's happened recently. So there's been a

rise in the maternal mortality rates in the USA since they've brought in all the restrictions around abortion, which is unsurprising to be honest, but it's also devastating. I mean, even in Australia, the biggest killer of women back in the day used to be childbirth, but now we have so many more caveats and safety networks around that. We give women so many more opportunities of choice around their body. This idea that you could be anti-family or anti-kid, the flip side of that is maybe you're just anti-women. Maybe you're anti-women having the choice. It doesn't make you pro-family. It makes you against people having the opportunity of choice over their own bodies. That's so fucking deeply problematic. Framing someone as crazy or a cat lady or as

though they're miserable with their own lives is just such low-hanging fruit. It's so easy and makes it so simple to dismiss someone, their intelligence, their ability to run a country by being like, yeah, but they're a fucking crazy, miserable cat lady. J.D. Vance has come out since and said that his comments in 2021 were simply sarcastic and that they've been taken too closely to heart. But he also said this, which I think is fucking hilarious. He said, I've got nothing against cats. I've got nothing against dogs. I've got a dog at home and I love him. Because he's trying to say that the point he was trying to make was missing. He's like, we're just focusing on the sarcasm.

We're missing the point. And now I'm going to say it again. I understand in a backwards way what his point is. He's just trying to say we want to have a bunch of people running a country that haven't actually put a foot or a finger in that pie. Like I can say until the cows come home, I understand what it must be like to have kids, Laura. Like my family has kids.

I've seen you have kids. but I will never understand what it's like to have kids until I have kids. So I understand what he's trying to say, but I think he didn't know how to communicate that. I don't support him in any capacity. So I don't want anyone to take that, that I'm trying to support him when I say that. But I do understand by saying, if you haven't lived something,

you don't understand it on a level that someone that has lived it understands. And do you think that since you've become a mom, Laura, your perspective and understanding has completely changed? The way you view the world, the things that you think about, the things that you worry about? Has that changed drastically from when you were in my position and you didn't have those worries? I don't think parenting has changed my outlook, but I think it has made me aware of things that I want to be easier for my children when they're older. Like I don't want my children to experience the type of discrimination or if they chose

something that society deems as being left of the normal or left of traditional, I don't want them to experience adversity because of that. I say this because, like, I want their lives to be as easy as humanly possible and I want them to have a lot of joy. But has it changed me as a person? In some ways, but not politically. But I want those same things, Laura, and I don't have children. I want those same things for the people that are living it

and experiencing it right now. I want a fair and equal world for them. I want an easy world for them and I don't have kids and I don't have to have kids to have that point of view. There are things that motherhood undoubtedly change in you but not so much that that's the only thing that you then care about and I think that that's the really important part of this is that going back to this idea that if you don't have kids you can't possibly understand the plight of parents I just don't agree what I think is quite ironic is that

he operates in a democratic society where we are all expected to elect someone to represent all of us that's the point of a democracy but he's making out that unless you've walked the walk you can't do the talk yeah so he's making out that unless you've actually lived the life that you are creating policies around you're not able to represent a community and that's completely anti-democratic like yeah very ironic and shows like a complete lack of empathy yeah it's time for suck and sweet our highlights and our low lights you know we never finish an episode without it i'm gonna kick it off my suck was last night and this is probably my fault i gave delilah some of my leftover nacho chicken.

She always eats what I eat. So I gave her some dinner, went to the shower, came back. It feels like a bit spicy for a dog. It wasn't spicy though because I never give her spice. A bit flavoursome. It was marinated. Too much stuff going on. And that was where I went wrong.

Did it marinate on your floor? It did. In the rug? Mm-hmm. Lovely. And I have wooden floorboards and then like my house is wooden floorboards. I just have one rug. Anyway, I came back out of the shower.

The rug feels like grass. That's the problem. They always choose the rug over the floorboards. It was the biggest vomit I have ever seen. It was like a huge, big lump. The only saving grace was it was whole, so I could almost just like scoop, like it wasn't a wet vomit, but it was probably weighed one and a half kilos. That's disgusting.

Yeah, so that was my sock. It was the poor little thing, but I'm going to blame myself and think it was the chicken. I'm going to blame you too. My sweet was also Delilah. If you guys have been following along, you'll know she's had a really rough trot at dog school lately. she got kicked out. Then she got put on probation. I started with another dog trainer this week. So

we had like a two hour session yesterday, but my sweet was this week, she got a report card that was like flying colors. The probation has extended. Like she's not being kicked out immediately because she did really, really well. No one else could care less, but this is like a huge impact in my life because it will change my life. If she can't go to a dog school, I'm screwed. And I got Like a proper report card. Like she sent me a report card and it had like levels where she was doing really well. What do you think has changed and why is she behaving now?

Does she know that she's like on her last legs literally? I don't think she knows but I don't know. I gave her a real sit down and I genuinely talked to her for ages about what was wrong but I don't think that got through. I think, and people are going to question this, I don't know, if you're a dog professional, I think it's also hormonal. I think dogs go through cycles like women. probably where in the month different things are happening like so I reckon she just had good days

and bad days we've got an awesome episode for that it's called PMDD just send her the link in the show notes what's yours my I mean my suck for the week there's been a lot going on lately that's been a bit hard like I mentioned earlier I've got to leave here this afternoon and go back down to Wollongong because my stepdad is super super super unwell but also Basti he fell down the stairs and he's hurt his back he will be fine but he's nine and a bit now and when we were at the vet the vet was a slightly older lady and we go to this vet all the time it's a fantastic vet but it's the first time I had seen this specific vet and she was like oh you know he's done some or so to his back if things get worse take him to the sash hospital and they'll do an x-ray or a ct scan

and she was like no no we don't do precautionary ct scans anyway I was like getting a bit upset about it and I was like look it's really he's very important to us he's a family member and if there's anything that we can do precautionary I'd rather just do it even if it costs extra money and she said to me darling you know he's not going to live forever don't you I yeah I just like I was like I'm not ready to come to the realization that also Buster is an old dog because he is literally my first child I was like we're not doing that that's not a conversation that's being had today yeah when you think about pets they are your family and it's it is a shitty realization to think that they're not going to be here forever so that happened on the week past

and then my sweet for the week is that on Saturday we had a little birthday celebration for Matt it was his birthday a couple weeks ago I hadn't done anything and then my beautiful friend Falcon helped me organize just uh just a thing in our house but it was it was perfect like it was just family and a couple of Matt's friends and yeah and I felt really grateful for it so that was We love Falcon. Yeah, Falcon, you're my highlight. Anyway, guys, that is it from us. We hope that you loved the episode.

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