Off Air... with Jane and Fi - We must keep a veneer of showbiz

Episode Date: March 21, 2023

There's no time for shilly shallying or dilly dallying on today's episode... Jane is on the run from her dream tortoise and Fi's promised everyone biscuits tomorrow. They're joined by psychotherapist Stella O'Malley, author of 'What Your Teen is Trying to Tell You: Surviving, thriving and re-connecting through the teenage years'. If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] Assistant Producer: Kate Lee Times Radio Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

VoiceOver describes what's happening on your iPhone screen. VoiceOver on. Settings. So you can navigate it just by listening. Books. Contacts. Calendar. Double tap to open. Breakfast with Anna from 10 to 11. And get on with your day. Accessibility. There's more to iPhone. OK, are we ready to go?

Testing, testing, one, two, three, testing, testing. Yes, excellent, right. Thumbs up from Kate Lee. And when Kate Lee gives us the thumbs up, up from kate lee and when kate lee gives us the thumbs up you know that there is no time for shilly shallying or dilly dallying uh this one comes in uh from katherine downs it's about your dream would you like a dream explanation obviously i'm fascinated by this but i do wonder i mean i'm a narcissist but is there a is there global interest in that weird dream I had? I'm not sure there's always global interest in anything that we're talking about. So would you like to have your dream explained to you?

Go on, try me. Okay, here we go. Well, because you and I, we did a bit of amateur dream explaining. Dear Jane and Fee, long-time expat listener in New York, I was thrilled to hear you describe Jane's dream in Monday's podcast on the spring equinox, no less what a corker. It seems full of meaning, perhaps brought on by your lovely relaxing spa day. Right, here comes Catherine's interpretation for what it's worth.

The decomposing log represents things we need to let go of to release into the ground for composting. It's all good and creates fertile ground for new growth. The log splitting may indicate a resistance to letting things naturally fall away. I think you could probably take a chainsaw to that resistance. Perhaps feeling conflict or frustration about something, the tortoise encourages slowing down

to actually move a little slower than we're accustomed to, breathe deeper and practice this at every opportunity. This will allow us to align with our internal rhythms rather than being pulled around by outside pressures and the demands of life. Spending time in nature, putting bare feet on the ground

allows us to experience a solid connection to earth. And when we do this, we typically feel calmer and more centred. And Catherine goes on to say, it's also very beneficial to soak in the bath or stand in the shower and literally let it all wash over you, again moving slowly and breathing deeply. We're back to our two-hour shower.

Yes. This is, she mentioned, Catherine mentioned the spring equinox, didn't she? I know obviously that only applies if you're in the hemisphere that we're in. Which is the northern. The northern. I was just checking in with you there because I just forgot that just for a second. Where am I? Where are we?

You're at work. Anyway, but everything does feel, it's just freshening up a bit in London. Oh, hugely. Gorgeous afternoon. we're just looking because when we first started here it was we were going right into winter we were in sort of late october weren't when we arrived and it was always quite gloomy at this time this beautiful early evening sunshine peeking through the walkie-talkie building opposite us i've gone a bit too soon though because i'm exposing my ankles already yes i've regretted that over the last couple of days

but i'm wishing spring to be here because the blossom is out, the birds are up early and I think it's time to show an ankle shouting but yes thank you, I think that'll be the end of talking about my dreams for a while well unless the tortoise comes back

well unless the tortoise makes another comeback and my diplomatic career seems to have ground to a halt so since that unexpected posting to Bucharest the night after the exploding log dream, there was nothing last night. If you're new to this podcast, it'd be interesting if you decided to stay with it. Yes, it would. We were talking on the programme today about how you tell an older driver to pack it in. And there was a really interesting text right at the end of the programme. We didn't have time to fit it in from Maggieie um in lime regis who's a regular correspondent

just to say that her she had the most monumental tussle with her dad who had been an advanced police driver and so telling him that the time had come to pack in the driving was just incredibly difficult and i can imagine it was I just thought I'd mention that. Lynn says, after listening to your podcast last night with the Asma Khan interview, I have just watched that Netflix show, Chef's Table. It was great. Asma is a truly inspirational lady

and it was fascinating to see her story unfold. Really uplifting. The new music in the podcast is definitely a change for the better, says Lynn. And she's not alone in that sentiment. No, so there's been quite a lot of activity on Twitter from people saying, yep, that's a good thing. And one person saying it was absolutely terrible and they very much enjoyed the,

well, I mean, it was the kind of sensation you were about to go to a spin class, wasn't it? Which isn't us. It's very, very much not us. Can I just say a very quick hello and thank you to, actually this might be difficult because I think it's one of those ones who's asked to remain anonymous. Well, can you just sort of dance around some of the finer points? Yes, well, it was just a very thoughtful one.

It's called Running Out of Time to Walk Down the Aisle and it's from one of our correspondents who just has a really fantastic relationship with her dad. I'm 26, my dad is 84, and despite a tempestuous relationship when I was a teenager and the radio silence between my parents since I was 14, my dad and I speak on the phone every single day, and we range often but not exclusively from Ready Meals to Monty Don, the weather to Westminster, The A1 to Alexa,

Hello Alexa, that won't be annoying at all, Mental Health Marmalade and His Mortality. And she was writing in response to our listener who was struggling to make her decision about whether or not to try and walk down the aisle with her uncle who has stage 4 cancer or to wait and have an enormous wedding that would obviously need an awful lot more planning but it's just a really beautiful email jane because i think it is quite rare and almost impossible to be able to understand what it's going to feel like when someone who you

really love is no longer there it's just you know we wouldn't be able to keep going as human beings if we could imagine the sensation of grief it It is too unpleasant, disconcerting, mad and just sour. So you don't know until somebody's gone how much you love them. But this correspondent has just really thought about all of the things that she's going to want to have heard from her dad before her dad has passed away so obviously uh listening to the email being read out has really made her think about whether she should get married now before her dad who isn't you know terminally ill no but you know she's i think just sensible to realize that at 84 that is not a never-ending piece of string um and she does say a couple of things as a wedding

caterer however supportive and wealthy your family are however brilliant your fiance is the organization of the big day is something that just is very stressful if you can and this is her advice to our correspondent free yourself from trying to make the perfect choice when such an important and emotional factor as your uncle's terminal illness is out of your control. It's not a dilemma. Anyone who loves you would choose for you. But it's so clear that you are so loved and all that love is so important and joyful in itself. And she goes on to say, I've made my peace with my own very different situation. I've asked dad all the questions I can picture myself wanting to know the answers to and I've accepted there are some questions he won't be there to answer. I know

that the day I dread will have come in the not too distant future and if it helps I tell myself really there is no right or wrong answer. And the original correspondent, Anonymous, who's wrestling with what to do about her wedding has also got back in touch to say, I just wanted to say how helpful the advice was regarding my dilemma. Answering my email meant a great deal to me, more than you could imagine. You validated my feelings and helped me not to dismiss the situation as inconsequential, something that I think is very easily done in situations like this,

when one can be guiltily drawn to saying, surely there are bigger and more important things to worry about. So after listening to the advice of your listeners, I now love the idea of having an engagement party with my friends and a smaller, more intimate ceremony and dinner with my close loved ones. And I'll make sure that someone has cash on them to avoid your taxi dilemma fee. Thank you very much, says Anonymous. So we're really glad that you're glad.

And thanks to everybody who chipped in with their own experience because it was brilliant. Very much so. Can I just give a little bit of a shout out to Liz, who sent an incredibly thoughtful email all about that. And because her dad had been diagnosed with leukaemia and had been very ill by the time she got to get married but he had managed to walk her down the aisle and she just ends by saying well i still remember the bloody audio

system the crap microphones and his anxiety i also remember seeing a room full of our dearest people who all witnessed my brilliant clever and brave dad his ravaged face wonky smile a bow tied to his stick bossing it in his bandages. And she adds, oh, and I am still married, not yet divorced. Well done. Well, you know. Thank you for keeping me company while I work on my laptop and cook sausages for small children.

My dad would have loved you. Well, we would have loved him too, Liz. Yeah, thank you, Liz. That's really sweet. Now, the controversy yesterday, it was only a mild controversy, but I'm going to mention it again. Oh, green crosses for pharmacies. Yeah, and it's a rare but wonderful thing.

Deep sighs. No, to be fair, I understand why you thought this, but Fi and I were talking about we'd had an email from a correspondent who's a Kentuckian currently in the UK, and thanks to our wonderful guidance was able to navigate her way around the British shopping system

because she knew that Boots was a chemist. And Fee thought... Sorry. I know, it is weird. Can I just say that I've just... There has never been anything in the window of a Boots that has made me think, that's not a chemist. It's just piled high with shampoo,

chemistry things. It just never, it's not a confusing shop. I always associate Boots with the very first time I went out with a baby in a pram. It must have been, I don't know, in the early 21st century. And I couldn't believe that it had automatic doors. And I was so relieved,

because I had been wondering how I was going to get into a shop. Oh, the first time that you try and get in with a... Did you have a proper pram? Yeah, I can't remember. One of those... Was it a buggy or a pram? Oh, it was a proper... There wasn't a McLaren, because I had a buggy.

I just went missing, that buggy. I still think about that. No, it was a pram. Yeah, because trying to get in a door with a pram, because there's just so much out in front. It's all happening, isn't it? It's really, and then you have to turn it round. And I think it does.

Sometimes pull it back, yeah. It takes about three weeks to learn to get in and out of doors and up and down pavements. Because the first time that you bounce a pram, front wheels first down a pavement. Because when your baby is tiny in a pram, the first down a pavement because when your baby is tiny in a pram the baby slides about yes and i remember thinking i'm sure there must be some kind of a safety belt that i could harness yeah well they are well they are on buggies but there aren't

imprints no they just rattle around back to charlotte yes sorry she's in vancouver um reboots green crosses are the symbols of pharmacies only in Europe. I've seen them in France and the UK, but it isn't a thing in North America. So, no, a Canadian or an American wouldn't necessarily know that Boots is a pharmacy unless, like me, they've got English rallies. OK, I just I don't want to start a war over this, but Charlotte, I think that you would. Well, I'm not certain. want to start a war over this but Charlotte I think that you would I just think that you would I'm not certain I just don't think you'd ever think I'm going to pop in there because it looks like they're selling shoes they've just done a cunning disguise in the window of shampoo

conditioner elastoplast an umbrella and some chewing gum but I bet they actually sell boots at the back elastoplast what's Don't. If I mocked your accent... No, it's very funny, actually, because my... You seem to think it's funny to mock mine. I wonder if anyone else from Liverpool

will be able to relate to this. My maternal grandmother was a Scouser, Irish. Irish Scouser. But she would only ever use the short A, except when she talked about plasters.

Plasters. She weirdly said plasters. And I don't think it was unknown in that generation. Anyway, just a weird thing. Just suddenly remembered it. Thank you for doing that. Can I just also say, before we leave the buggy conversation, I remember once, so this would have been back in five live days,

I know, maybe it wasn't. No, I had my babies at Radio 4. Anyway, you had your babies at Radio 4. Oh, they provide everything, don't they? They just let it happen in reception or... And would you think we've slagged the place off? Really. You've got a cheek.

Well, I think now it's probably the room that's dedicated to Amal Rajan's naps. It was a birthing pool room. Oh, that's where you had it. Yeah, for those of us. I remember there being a story about how forward-facing buggies were bad for your babies because they denied your baby the opportunity to be looking back at you. Well, I can see the logic in that.

Well, I remember reading it and just and just thinking it's probably my second child by then. Just thinking, stop it. Stop it with your stories about how we're letting our babies down. It's kind of like it's just that's just ridiculous and too much. Of all of the things that are going to mess up your kids, the fact that they couldn't see your occasionally smiley, but maybe sometimes a little bit exasperated face, out and about on your daily ventures to the pharmacy,

where you accidentally bought some ankle boots, just struck me as just being a bit too much, Jane. Do you know what I mean? Yes, I do. I do. And I'm sorry you had that experience. Thank you. Because those weeks of a child's life, early life, are very stressful.

Yeah, and also just stop it with the make mums feel bad about things. And you've never felt more vulnerable. In fact, I've been listening to, there's a very good BBC podcast, I've got to be honest, about the Iraq war, which was, of course, 20 years ago. And it's excellent. It's called, oh God.

It's called Shock and War. Yes, Shock and War. That's right. And it's absolutely brilliant. And it brought back, I was going to say it brought back memories, but it also taught me a lot. Were you in the military?

No, no, I wasn't. Because I'd had a baby at the beginning of February in 2003. So I was simply out of it. I wasn't at work, obviously. And I truly was not getting any sleep. And I do not remember very much about

that period of my life, if I'm honest, except that I was just knackered and quite upset most of the time. And listening to this podcast has brought some of those quite weird memories back, but it's fantastic. So if anybody is young enough not to know anything about the Iraq war or like me needs a reminder of what really happened and

why, I do recommend that. On a similar vein but not quite so high minded there's a certain period of time in the EastEnders plot line between 2006 and 2007 which I can quote almost word for word but nothing else because you're at home because you know when you start breastfeeding you just have to lock on to something

while they latch on to you don't you so i watched a lot of eastenders then but it's one of those weird things you know it might be my specialist subject on celebrity mastermind if they'll allow me to just do three months of the eastenders plot line i mean i know they're desperate for you but I'm not sure they'd be that adaptable. I don't know. I just want to mention Claire's email about her daughter Becca who is the pharmacist at a lovely pharmacy in Rustall in Kent. It sounds like an idyllic village in Kent and it does indeed have a green cross outside. However that standard of a green cross is complicated. It has to have the green cross and either the word pharmacy or pharmacist as well.

It has been used on continental Europe since the early 20th century, but only in the UK since 1984. Isn't that interesting? You think things like I've been forever, around forever, but not. No, rather, I'm losing the ability to speak English.

I think it's since that giant tortoise took control of my life. Thank you very much for that. I appreciate it. I think what happens at the autumn equinox. Stay tuned. So we had a very interesting guest on the programme today, Stella O'Malley, who's a psychotherapist, public speaker, teen whisperer and parent herself.

And everything that you need to know about what's in the interview is in the title of her book, which is called What Your Teen Is Trying To Tell You. It is a very useful handbook designed for parents to try and better understand their teens. And it's got quite a lot of case studies in it from Sheila O'Malley's psychotherapy rooms, and then some quite handy kind of takeaway advice on what you should actually do if you think that your teens are in trouble. So we started off the interview by asking her if she would accept that we are at a crisis point for teens across the globe, because they're caught in the glare of technology they might have been

damaged by the lockdowns of the pandemic and they've definitely been saddled with a future that seems to be diminishing in many ways i.e can things get any worse yeah i i do think that it's very hard to be a teenager at the moment i think it's actually lovely childhood that we give children i think it's it's it's magical and very, very pleasant, filled with fairy tales and Santé and Legoland. And then they hit a brick wall around puberty and there's a kind of a reckoning of no more Mr. Nice Guy. All that wishing on a star was frankly just a fairy tale, we told you.

And they're hit with a very complex reality very fast i think it's kind of too fast and it's too big a drop because we've given them such a fairy tale childhood and then they're in this complex kind of sophisticated world where you know social media is very complicated obviously but also there's an awful lot of behavioral expectation and so all the fun ballet and the fun kind of swimming and whatever they did up until about 11 or 12 suddenly gets very competitive very fast and they realize in a very bitter pill that life isn't fair that the good guys don't always um uh win that sometimes bullies are very popular and very good looking and sometimes the nice people

are left behind so I think an awful reckoning happens between 10 and 20 and I think at the moment it's particularly difficult to be an adolescent we're about 10 years into social media it's going badly for them there's an awful lot of mental health issues around adolescents and because there's so many you can't say it's them it's something about society and the way we're handling adolescence isn't working out and there's a different kind of dynamic isn't there between the teenage generation and any adult generation that's gone before because we have not really experienced what they've experienced and that does diminish our ability to say to them, I know what's best for you. Yeah, there's a disconnect because we can't quite imagine what

it's like to have everything online, to have all those embarrassing situations, like your first kiss put online and to have such an emphasis on looks. We all probably remember how vain we became as teenagers how obsessed we are with our hair our nose or our bodies they have it a million times worse like we are so much more conscious of our looks now and they are landed into it at a young age with selfies and photos and it's really heavily emphasized about their looks they do all look beautiful but they're also very anxious with it so in a way their looks have improved because there's so much effort going in but the mental health has massively disimproved because there's so much self-consciousness and tension around their looks and around their brand almost how they look online how they how they come across

whether they're witty or sassy or goofy or whatever. It's kind of a brand persona they're kind of putting across for likes and shares. And I think it's really hard on them. I really do think it's really hard on them. So if we've got parents who are listening this afternoon who are saying, yep, that's who I've got in my household at the moment, and they are worried about their teens, what do you advise them to do and say? Well, I suppose I think, first of all, I have every sympathy for parents and I know how hard it is. And they're constantly hearing people like me saying, oh, this is what you should do and this is what you should do.

So I do kind of give that grain of salt. I think it's pebbles in a barrel. I think you just regularly kind of have faith in yourself that your love will carry through that you you you keep trying to connect with them but not in the kind of hollywood motivational speech kind of way more along the lines of i made you a cup of tea you look a bit down and you leave you know you don't expect a big heart to heart from the teenagers because they're not that's not where they're faced. They're faced online. They're faced to their social kind of peers. They're facing away from their parents.

But if you were there as backup, sometimes seeing that they don't look very happy and they don't seem very happy and you've made them their favorite dinner because you know that they love it. And you kind of give them little gestures, like I say, pebbles in a a barrel just little gestures that will eventually fill up that you're there you're not intruding but you are seeing that they seem to be having a hard time there's something about that that is very powerful I remember actually when I was a teenager and I did have a very difficult teenage but I was pretty mad and my mother she didn't I didn't get on well with my mother but she could clearly see I was going a bit mad and I was pacing in my bedroom and she opened the bedroom door and she just threw it was a marathon at the time but it's a snickers now she threw it as if she was throwing meat to a lion and it kind of sailed across the room and landed on my bed and I kind of looked at it and then she left but it was a lovely gesture and I've always remembered it she couldn't connect with me she

didn't get on with me she could see I was distress, didn't know what was going on. And it was kind of like a gesture of solidarity. And actually, it was very touching at the time. We as parents aren't prepared to allow our teenagers to be very unhappy, which on the one hand is a very good thing. Maybe that's, you know, the benefit of how parenting has changed. But on the other hand, that is damaging too, isn't it? Because being unhappy, facing hardship, getting things wrong, it's it is just an essential, essential part of life. And better to learn that when you're still at home under some kind of care of an adult than out in the big wide world. some kind of care of an adult than out in the big wide world. Yeah. You know, in many ways, we are frightened of our children's distress. We've got heard so much about mental health.

And I say this as a psychotherapist, but we're frozen in the face of our children's tears. And so we can feel very fast that we should just barrel them off to the professionals rather than leaning in and saying what is it and what could i do anything to help i do think that we have kind of disempowered parents in many ways and made a professional kind of pathologization of ordinary human adolescent angst which is good and proper like they say you know adolescence is there to break the spell of childhood childhood happens it's very sweet and it's kind of filled with fakery adolescence happens the the stark reality of life comes in which which has beautiful moments but there's a heavy lesson to learn about unfairness and how unfair life is and it can hit teenagers and they can feel really distressed and really unhappy and I think in a way we need to be able to kind of handle that

as opposed to presume that there's something wrong that needs to be fixed it's more along the lines of bearing witness and saying yeah it is hard and life is so mind-boggling difficult sometimes and yet it can still be fun and it can still have moments of joy and you can still enjoy yourself today. So it kind of it's a complicated message that, you know, it took me many years to kind of adjust to the reality of life. So in fairness to them, there's no doubt that they have a very good case to say adolescence is very difficult. And our job is a bit of sympathy without being over overblown about it and without being afraid of the fact that they are learning bitter lessons in adolescence. Stella do you worry that this very very anxious

generation will grow into very anxious middle-aged people and then one day very anxious pensioners? Is that what we're looking at? Isn't that the question? I don't know, because I do know that they're very anxious. They don't want to grow up. It seems like the first generation who don't have any kind of need to grow up because they're like, it's handy.

I'm in my bedroom. I've got as much freedom as I want because I don't want much freedom. And frankly, I'd rather stay at home online because it's very distracting in a kind of vaguely entertaining way I've no mad desire to move out and move beyond because I feel anxious out in the big bad world because I haven't really been sold it because it just basically looks like an admin nightmare being an adult and we haven't sold them adulthood and they are buying into it they're saying yeah no don't want to be out there it's too hard i don't like to buy into moral panics and i've no doubt the resilience

of humankind is very strong so there might be a backlash certainly you know after the spanish flu came came the roaring 20s maybe after COVID there will come something. I don't know, but I do think that there's a very worrying proportion of young people with anxiety who are afraid of life, afraid of growing up. And I think we do have to lean into this and admit it and realise that we are really frightening young people at the moment. First with Anna from 10 to 11. And get on with your day. Accessibility. There's more to iPhone. You're listening to Off Air with Jane and Fi. Our guest is Stella O'Malley, a psychotherapist, public speaker.

She does an awful lot of work with teens. And she's the author of four books, the latest of which is called What Your Teen Is Trying to Tell You. So we went on to talk about the big stuff and we asked, is it easy to retrain a young man who started his sexual journey by seeing anger, violence, choking and submission in porn? Yeah, it is, but it will require a lot of commitment and a lot of effort and it won't be done easily. It's almost like if you want to lose, you know, five stone, you have to take time. You have to be very committed. You really have to put in the work. And that person really needs to want it. That isn't minor, but it could be done.

How much do you think parents are talking to their teenagers about the reality of porn? So when you see teenagers in your psychotherapy practice, is that the first time that they've discussed what they're witnessing with a grown up? Very often it is. And I think it's very, very awkward for parents. There's almost a natural evolutionary kind of privacy between parents and and children talking about sex and even parents who are very very open the child shuts them down and i don't want to talk about it with you anybody but you so in fairness we have to remind ourselves of that and there's an awful lot of opportunities in books and you know youtube videos nice ones which would actually be very educational but yeah porn hardcore porn it's an awful awful issue among teenagers you know i know teenage girls and the

boys are watching the porn beside them on the bus every single day just to see their reaction so much kind of really rough choking hitting gagging that they're seeing it's it's horrible on both for boys and girls it's it's really really really horrible their introduction to sex it's very kind of unromantic I know it's an old-fashioned but it really is it's very transactional and rough yeah and very difficult then to actually enjoy a normal relationship with its basic level of friendship you know top notes of physicality that's such a massive problem now isn't it there's a lack of fun you know there's an awful lot of emphasis on their looks and he's good looking he's buff and i'm good looking

whatever and photos are exchanged but there is there there's a massive lack of fun and giggles and kind of getting on with somebody and you know you know your hands touch all of that it's kind of done a lot more online where it feels more comfortable and less vulnerable but it's a lot less exciting and a lot less fun and they're missing out significantly if they're building their relationship online it's it's really it's a you know it's a fake it's a facsimile yeah of romance and sex i think they're really missing out on that. With regards to technology, something that obviously we can't ignore in the teenage world at all. How would you deal with a teenager who you think has become completely addicted to tech?

I think it's important that you call it. I think you do need to kind of say, I think there's unhealthy habits. I wouldn't let you eat junk food in the morning. I wouldn't let you drink vodka in the morning. I'm not going to let you be online all day, every day. And this is going to be difficult. And I know you're not buying into it, but I'm buying into it and I'm the parent and I'm going to use my authority. With that, you might say no tech in certain rooms, like let's say no tech in the kitchen, no tech in the bedrooms. And I know some people will immediately say, I have to have tech in the bedrooms. You pick it in your own household where you're going to say no tech, but some rooms should be tech free and some times of the day should be tech free. And you make your hard line, your own

hard line. I don't know what that is depending on the household. And, you know, very much kind of small habits, micro habits. You start with one, maybe one room and that's all you're going to do. And you wait until you've got that in to do the next one. I do think, though, that young teenagers, that parents should be monitoring their content, that they should be. I know this is controversial, but I do think that they should know the passwords and they should check and verify. I think it's too adult to be online without parental kind of authority over it, especially in young teens I'm talking about, rather than the older teens. They seem to have learned since around about 15, 16, and they kind of know kind of what to do and what not to do. But before that, it's really wild. Stella Romani is a psychotherapist. She specialises in teens at the moment, and her latest book is called What Your Teen Is Trying To Tell You. I really love her little anecdote about her mum just walking past her bedroom and just throwing a Snickers in, just like,

yep, that's what you need, no point talking about it. Like chucking fish at the seals. Yeah, but as she said, know just meet it in the into the lion's den but but that's such a canny thing to do as well isn't it because it avoids that setting of the stage i'm your parent and i'd like you to sit down i'm going to impart wisdom to you would you like to look into my eyes i'm different to you but we're similar i love you you know all of that going on it's just like yeah have chocolate you might feel better but i'm really really glad that we did a talk about porn because it's god it's so difficult but it's i find it just deeply depressing that violent porn is just a fact of life

in the everyday lives of incredibly young vulnerable children and so many young boys will as as as Stella said they the first time that they have that notion of what is pleasing to them and pleasing to women if they're sleeping with women the first time they have an open conversation about that with a grown-up is when it's got so bad they have got to see a therapist so that is really bad something Something has, you know, really spilled over into the rest of their life for an adult to identify that they need psychotherapy to help them. And I think I'm right in saying that porn and sex addiction is one of the largest growing problems within the therapy community for which people are trained to deal with so becoming a sex therapist is an increasingly common choice to make and you do think how do you work your way back from that to the really mundane rather boring a little bit uh not sure if this is going to work not sure if anyone's going to like this act of normal intimacy well i mean it's not that long ago that teenagers would build up to a sweaty snog at the end of the disco.

Oh, and there were just stages, weren't there, that were recognised. Recognised stages of snoggery. By everybody. Yes. Yep, yep, totally. Yeah, but let's not go there. But everybody of our generation will know what we're talking about. And I'm not saying those days were perfect, but honestly, I think they were probably marginally safer and quite a lot more fun.

Well, I'm sure they were. I'm sure they were. I'm sure. But, you know, I know it's just so difficult and I no idea what I don't have sons. Have I had conversations about porn with my children? Ish. Have they wanted to engage with me? children-ish. Have they wanted to engage with me? Not really. And so on and on we go. We keep talking, not least on Times Radio,

about the online harms bill. It hasn't been passed yet, has it? I don't suppose that even if it is passed, it will actually change anything about 13-year-olds and 12-year-olds, 11-year- 11 year old seeing images of well violent sexual acts which well it will attempt to because what it one of the things how will it stop it because it is trying to put a age limit that is it it will be a criminal offense for an internet provider or any kind of a platform not to verify the age of its users so it's a gate you know it's changing the gatekeeper so a 12 year old on the school bus will not be able to see images well

they'll be able to get around it because uh teens can always find a way to get around the technology but i think your point about the actual discussion of porn because of course you want to try and limit children's access to actually seeing any of those images in the first place. But surely an essential, I would argue, a more important part of their education is actually found out through conversation about what it is. Because not seeing porn is not going to inform you about the dangers of seeing porn.

Only a conversation about it and the ramifications of it are going to inform you about the dangers of seeing porn no only a conversation about it and the ramifications of it are going to do that and if we as parents can't sit down and have that conversation because of our own ignorance prudery embarrassment whatever it is uh that i mean that's just on us isn't it no one's going to be able to legislate for that. No, I mean, I sometimes just wish the mobile bloody phone had never been invented. Oh, me too. I really do. Just very briefly, we had a very interesting email from a listener called Jo, who says that she's just heard the Women of the World podcast with our guest June Oscar.

And our correspondent has an adopted daughter who has fetal alcohol syndrome. And she's just suggesting that it's a topic that needs wider discussion. So please, could we feature it on the radio programme? So I think we will, actually. I think it's a good idea because it is it's definitely something that can have a lifelong impact on a person. And it's well worth discussing. So thank you very much for that suggestion. We had quite a few suggestions, actually, didn't we, for that?

So, yes, we should definitely pursue it okay well i'm going to hand it over to kate and we'll make sure now tomorrow is boris johnson goes to the privileges committee day so our podcast will still be happening and we will have a guest won't we tony robinson is going to come in a little bit early and we're going to do what we call in the trade a pre-rec don't give away all the showbiz secrets. A pre-rec? No. We must keep, it's not the wizard of Oz, all this is real. Let's keep that veneer of showbiz. But it

does mean that we will then be able to man ourselves in the studio. Can we man ourselves? I don't know, it doesn't sound very nice. And I'd rather you didn't do it in front of me, if you don't mind. But you did promise earlier to bring in biscuits actually we shouldn't

this is a very serious important news story and the fact that we're just treating it as a chance to eat biscuits in a warm place is a disgrace I'm not, I'm suggesting that we are manning the station that's what I'm trying to get to between our normal hours of 3 and 5

but Times Radio has taken the whole Jing Bang shoot. Yes. From two o'clock onwards, you won't miss a moment. It's had a big build-up, this. So if it's turgid crap, then what can you do? Right, OK. Have a very good evening, everybody. We'll reconvene tomorrow. You did it.

Elite listener status for you for getting through another half hour or so of our whimsical ramblings. Otherwise known as the hugely successful podcast Off Air with Jane Garvey and Fee Glover. We missed the modesty class. Our Times Radio producer is Rosie Cutler, the podcast executive producer. It's a man. It's Henry Tribe.

Yeah, he's an executive. Now, if you want even more, and let's face it, who wouldn't, then stick Times Radio on at 3 o'clock Monday until Thursday every week, and you can hear our take on the big news stories of the day, as well as a genuinely interesting mix of brilliant and entertaining guests on all sorts of subjects. Thank you for bearing with us, and we hope you can join us again on Off Air very soon. I'm Open Breakfast with Anna from 10 to 11. And get on with your day. Accessibility. There's more to iPhone.