Suggestible - My Man's Got A Cold

Episode Date: September 19, 2019

Suggestible things to watch, read and listen to hosted by James Clement @mrsundaymovies and Claire Tonti @clairetonti.This week's Suggestibles:UnbelievableThe Testaments (The Handmaids Tale #2) by Margaret AtwoodDieChat 10 Looks 3The Wife Drought by Annabel CrabbMen at Work by Annabel CrabbBroad CityMy Man's Got A Cold by Paul Kelly ft. Vika BullFollow the show on Instagram and Twitter @suggestiblepod or visit www.planetbroadcasting.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Introducing Uber Teen Accounts, an Uber account for your teen with enhanced safety features. Your teen can request a ride with top-rated drivers, and you can track every trip on the live map in the Uber app. Uber Teen Accounts, invite your teen to join your Uber account today. Available in select locations. See app for details. It's Suggestible Pod, a pod where we suggest things to you, dear listener. I suggest being in full health recording a podcast. That's my suggestion for this week. Oh, God, he has the man flu.

Oh, it's over the man flu. My man's got a cold. Have you heard that Paul Kelly song? It's brilliant. Man flu. It's like an old school soul song, but it's funny. It's all about my man's got a bad. When I was a teacher, you cannot cough without somebody going.

Just a regular kind of cold. Somebody going, you you got the bloody man for it it's what a man for my husband he's got bloody man flu i woke up this morning there was just crumpled tissues all over the side of your bed and that's not from the bloody i mean more than normal yeah i take that back got a bit of a cold i can't shake it it's quite quite annoying because it's not enough to be like I'm in bed, so I still feel like I should do stuff, but I just feel terrible all the time.

But that's okay. I normally feel terrible all the time. I wonder why you've got a cold because it was an ice stick last week, so I passed it on. I wonder how that happened. But I cope so much better than you. It's our son. No, you don't.

You absolutely do not. You're the worst sick person in the world. My man's got it bad. Just a regular kind of cold. You should really listen to that song. My man's got a cold. But this podcast, it's called Suggestible, right? We suggest things we've read, watched, listened to and whatever. Is that right? That is certainly right. Your name is James. My name is Claire. And I made a rule that it's gentlemen's first. So off you go, Coldy Walden. There we go.

There's a new show on Netflix. It's called Unbelievable. Oh, someone recommended that to me on Twitter. Well, good. I couldn't think of it. My brains aren't working. That's great. So it's co-created by Susanna Grant, Aylet Waldman, and Michael Charbon.

And basically it's a series that stars Caitlin Dever, who you might know from Booksmart. She's one of the leads in Booksmart. Merit Weaver from Nurse Jackie and Toni Collette. I saw this. Who does not need no introductions. Yeah. So basically if you want a charming, upbeat narrative,

this is not it because it follows the 2008 to 2011 serial rape case. It's a true story happening in the United States. And basically it starts with Marie, who's played by Susanna Grant. She's a college student. She's had this kind of tough upbringing being kicked around from foster home to foster home. Someone breaks into her house and rapes her, takes a photo, says, if you tell anybody, I'm going to release this and whatever. And so she goes to the police.

She tells her story multiple times as you do. And it's all these kind of detective men in your 50s. You'd love this Mason kind of questioning her again and again about what happened. Did you just call me Mason? Did I call you Mason? Actually, before the show the other day, I called Mason Claire. So I'm just. You're in a real tough spot.

But so anyway, they start to, and because of the people around her start kind of questioning her story, that kind of gets back to the cops and they force it out of her that this didn't happen and she's making it up for attention. So then the series for her spirals into she's being charged for this thing that actually happened to her, but just to make it go away, she just said that she made it up. So her life is ruined, like all her friends hate her. This is a true story, by the way. It's unbelievable, Claire.

But anyway, while this is happening, the two detectives played by Merritt Weaver and Tony Collette in somewhere else in the U.S. of A., they're looking at all these seemingly unconnected rape cases. And because it's not a serial murderer, it's kind of the attention isn't necessarily given to them in the same way that a serial killer would. So they're piecing it all together, trying to work out, is this the same guy? Like, is this like some kind of playbook that, you know, has been on the internet so people know how to get away with this kind of stuff?

Because the way that the guy does it is he moves from state to state so the cases aren't connected because it's under different jurisdiction. He does this thing where he takes the bedsheets so there's no DNA and all these kinds of things. So he's really good at covering his tracks. And they're like, is this guy military? Is he a cop? Is he just smart? Again, it's a true story of them trying to catch this guy.

And it's just a very well-told, horrifying, kind of procedural show that's super well acted and, you know, if you like true crime and that kind of thing. It's also incredibly unsettling obviously as well but there is – the way the show is kind of put together and shows like the victim mentality that kind of people put on, you know, people not being believed, you know what I mean, and the way that, you know, if it was – again, if it was, again, if it was somebody killing someone, it would be a different story,

you know, all those kinds of things, even though you're still, you're ruining lives, you know what I mean? Yeah, absolutely. There's so much. And I find this in the same way with Me Too and cases that come up with, you know, sexual assault. So often it's the victim that has something horrendous happen to them, but then also goes on trial and has to, and they, they kind of raked over the coals.

They have, the onus is on them to speak up, to say something. And then also repeat their story again and again. Yeah. And then you've got people who were like questioning. And I understand, of course, you need to get the, get to the bottom of it, obviously. And there needs to be those kind of procedures in place. But just the way that the initial detectives come at her, as opposed to you see later victims who went with Tony Collette

and that approached them, it's just a completely different way of approaching it. And you can see how that makes it, how that made such a huge difference. Yeah, well, it's about empathy. Yeah, it's exactly what it is. Yeah and and an understanding that every time you would retell something like that you're reliving it yeah exactly yeah yeah and they pick up little things like well you said this but in the previous one you said it was at this time or whatever and well this person said that you said this and it's just this it's just terrible like it's really horrible

that way that um it destroyed this real woman's life. That's heartbreaking. But it does sound like a really fascinating and important show. It's really good. And it's like the performances are terrific. I mean, all those people I mentioned. I mean, you know, Toni Collette. Toni Collette is great in everything.

She's great in United States of Tara. Yeah, I've only seen a bit of that. But yeah, she is. She does all the multiple personalities. Yeah, I really like her. Oh my gosh. In Muriel's Wedding. Yeah. So many. And she's a chameleon. She really is. She does all the multiple personalities. Yeah, I really like her. Oh, my gosh. In Muriel's Wedding. Yeah.

So many. And she's a chameleon. She really is, yeah. She can look really attractive and then really not. It's so fascinating. She just changes with her hair colour and her face and her mannerisms. She really can just morph into so many different characters. She's a fascinating actress.

Agreed. Or actor, I should say. All right. Thank you for Unbelievable. Excellent. It's Unbelievable, except She's a fascinating actress. Agreed. Or actor, I should say. All right. Thank you for Unbelievable. Excellent. It's Unbelievable, except it's very believable. Well, there you go. This is quite a serious episode.

We've got a few serious recommendations. My second one is very uplifting. All right. Okay. Excellent. Mine are all quite serious. So the first one is The Testaments by Margaret Atwood. Oh, yes.

Yes. I'm so excited. So The Testaments is the sequel to her first Atwood. Oh, yes. Yes. I saw an interview with her the other day. I'm so excited. So The Testaments is the sequel to her first novel, The Handmaid's Tale. You know, hugely popular. It's her most important novel, though she's also well-known for her poetry and other books. She's written children's books as well. She's just this prolific author.

I watched an interview with her last night with Lee Sales, who's the journalist. Your hero, Lee Sales. One of my heroes. He's sort of one of the preeminent journalists in Australia. She does the Seventh Day to Report, but also one of my favourite podcasts, Chat 10 Looks 3. And in that, Margaret Atwood talked a lot about how she decided in this book, instead of writing from the character Offred,

so if you haven't watched the TV show or read the book, The Handmaid's Tale is set in a fictional kind of, what would you call dystopia? Dystopian future, yeah. Dystopian future. But not so distant from the body world we currently live in. So it's called Gilead. Basically women's rights are being completely stripped.

Something has happened to the earth where obviously it feels like it's happening now. Nothing will grow and women's fertility rates have dropped hugely. But is it the women? Is it? Who knows? Is it kind of the implication that it's not actually the men? Well, anyway, so women's roles are then made really kind of traditional.

So there are women who are handmaids who are basically sex slaves forced to carry children for the wives of commanders. Like forced surrogacy. Yeah, correct. Exactly. And it really, The Handmaid's Tale follows the story of Offred, who in the TV show is played by Elizabeth Moss. Yes.

Brilliantly, may I say so. You may. Thank you. There's also another character called Aunt Lydia, who is an aunt. So the aunts kind of rule the women's realm. So commanders and men really have all the power in this society. However, the aunts have as much power as women can in Gilead. Obviously, Canada is free of that kind of oppression. So the story is fascinating because it shows what can

happen when power is exploited, when people's religious and political beliefs sort of morph and twist and then become just horrible. And people also kind of sit back and like apathy, I guess. Let things happen, apathy. Yeah, that's a huge part of it. How bad could it be? Yeah, exactly. So they explore the film in the TV show and in the novel as well,

how it happens and how people were sort of ignoring what was happening on the news until one day Elizabeth Moss's character, Offred, tries to go and pay for something in a shop. Her cards declined and then it turns out that she now no longer can hold money or employment and she has to be beholden to her husband. And in the story it goes as far to say even if you are unmarried, that means that potentially your nephew, so the closest male relative

to you, would then hold all your income and be responsible for you as a woman, which is also terrifying because everything that happens in Margaret Atwood's first novel, The Handmaid's Tale, was based on historical events that have happened to women either over time or even in the present day and still continue to happen to women. Women can't drive. They can't hold jobs.

They're not allowed to read, all things which are still happening today. They're seen purely there for procreation. So that in itself is terrifying. Margaret Atwood talks in her novel, The Testaments, which I just read, which I loved, about how she couldn't re-find the voice of Offred. So instead she writes the novel from a few different voices. One of which is baby Nicole, which is Offred's second daughter that she has and who in a TV show, spoiler alert, is taken out of Gilead

and put into safety in Canada. The second voice is actually Aunt Lydia, who is one of the most powerful women in Gilead and is responsible for a huge number of atrocities and killings and stonings and, you know, really. Mind-washing. Yeah, exactly. Just horrendous acts to keep the handmaids in control, basically.

But that's really fascinating because she really fleshes out Aunt Lydia's backstory. She was a judge and how it happens. Tell me about it. It seems more interesting than what they did in the TV series. It's much more interesting. In the TV series she was kind of a pretty conservative teacher. And that's really kind of the extent of it.

Yeah, and she's also kind of seen as quite weak in a way. She falls in love with the principal. And the way that she kind of switches isn't as dramatic as what you said happens in the book. No. Which I won't spoil. I won't spoil. But yeah, in the book they really go into it. They see how she then decides to use the power, the limited power that she has to manipulate things for Gilead.

And I won't spoil any more of it. but that in itself alone is so worth it. It's not just about the power of men and how they use their power, but also this book focuses heavily on how women use their power in whatever capacity they have. Do you think, I haven't read the first book. Do you think I could just jump straight to this one? Definitely, particularly because you've seen the series. Yeah, you definitely can. You know all the characters. The third character is actually, and this is revealed quite early on, her first daughter.

Oh, right. Okay. Yeah. So that's really interesting too, because her first daughter is, Offred's daughter is taken from her and put with a family in Gilead and raised in that way. So she doesn't even know that her mother was a handmaid initially in the story. So that's kind of the three voices that come through. And it's all kind of written as if from the future looking back at Gilead and the phenomenon of Gilead. Yeah, so they're kind of witness statements and letters. Like World War II for those people who have read that.

Yeah, and I would really recommend that. So that's The Testaments by Margaret Atwood. I'm so excited. Such a good book. I'm surprised – I'm not surprised it took so long because the first one was from the 80s, wasn't it, I guess, with the popularity of the series. Yeah. And it's really great also that it came back and it's equally good as well

because often people try to revisit these things and it's like – Well, I think that's why she'd never written a sequel because she said she could not recapture the voice of Offred, so she doesn't even try. She said it took her a long time to find a way to re-enter that world, and so this is how she does it. So I think that was one of the reasons she said she waited so long. Another reason, she said, was that in the 80s this was kind of written

in the same way that 1985 was written, right? Yeah, which was written in the 50s, yeah. Yeah, exactly where it's kind of preposterous future, whereas she said now the world feels like it's sort of coming closer and closer to a potential Gilead. Even when The Handmaid's Tale started, it was less kind of like realistic than it has been now. It's been going three or four years or whatever.

Yeah, yeah. So exactly. So she said it's been now. It's been going three or four years or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. So exactly. So she said it's been such an interesting time. I remember watching The Handmaid's Tale and there's a scene in there where Offred sees her daughter again who was ripped from her and her daughter is six and then they're torn apart again and it's absolutely heartbreaking and it's incredible the way that Elizabeth Moss portrays this moment.

But at the same time that aired, all of the problems that were happening, well, that are still occurring in the US at the Mexican borders and, you know, families and children being separated. And then do you remember the audio that was released of children that were crying in detention for their parents? You see the image of Mike Pence standing next to the people in cages. So that audio of the children crying was so vivid and it happened in the exact week that episode dropped and it just made you feel so terrified.

Yeah. Okay. This episode is becoming really dark. Don't worry. I'm going to brighten things up. Hey folks, it's Mark Maron from WTF. I travel all over North America doing stand up,

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Alright, okay, so anyway, I highly recommend reading The Handmaid's Tale as well, watching the TV show and The Testaments. However, it is heavy going, so if you do not want that in your life, go listen to Lizzo instead. Or watch the series Unbelievable about the serial rape case between 2000 and 2013. Go watch Younger and cheer yourself up. Cheer yourself up.

It's something that will cheer you up. This is a comic that I've just gotten into and I love it. It's called Die, as in D-I-E, as in death. Great. Okay, this episode is so dark and awful. This is a good one. I mean, it is bleak, but it's like fantasy. So basically it's a writer, Kieran Gillen,

and artist Stephanie Hans, a very well regarded comic book, people working with comic books. And this has been described, this comic has been described by Gillen as goth Jumanji. So if he needs to kind of quickly pitch it to somebody because basically it's a what he says here is it's a pitch black fantasy where a group of 40 something adults have to deal with returning to the unearthly horror they barely survived as teenage as teenagers in a role-playing game so we're in there it starts in the early 90s and they get sucked into this jumanji style role-playing game and they're in there for two years and they're adventuring and sword fighting and killing people and whatever.

And they're injured themselves and all these traumas and fun and adventure. And then they get out, right? Except one of them doesn't. One of them gets stuck in there. And then when they're in their 40s, they go back in. And the guy's still there. He's been there for 20 years. And on top of that, they've been divorced and they've got children and they've

been traumatized. And one of them's missing an arm because when they came out, they lost an arm and the whatever. And there's all these also, so there's the real world consequences. But then when they're back in there, some love it because they feel like they're young and fit again in the way that you can't be in the real world. And also people don't consider it, some of them don't consider it to be real. So there's no kind of consequences, but maybe there are at the same time. Is there some kind of afterlife? Like what exactly is this thing? And it's also all of the things that they, adventuring that they did 20 years prior has now come around. So a lot of those consequences come

back because one of the characters has somebody return, one of her powers is that she can say something and someone will have to do it and this person that was in love with her made a promise that she would i know you're kind of tuning out but i have told you this before haven't i as well uh what made the promise that i'll you know i have to see you again so now this person and then this person approaches her 20 years later but died some 17 years before that. And since then the eyes have rotted out of their head so they can't actually fulfil this promise, this curse that was put upon. Yeah. So all these consequences keep kind of rolling around again.

So there's like a rotting zombie version of her life. Yes. Oh, God. I'm so sorry, listeners. We've really taken this seriously. It's how I feel inside today so you can all feel like me. So Stephanie Harnes, like I said, does the art. And the art, I haven't seen a comic that looks this good in a long time.

And it's like seven issues in as of so far and it's terrific. I think it's the best comic I've read this year probably. Wow, that's a big call. Yeah. So, I mean, I'm not a super big Dungeons and Dragons guy. I know a little bit about it, but if you probably know more about it than me, you might get more out of it. But that being said.

I'm a wizard. I'm a goblin. Let's fight. Yeah, it's a bit like that. That's pretty much D&D then. At the same time, you don't need to know any of that kind of going into this. Anyway, check out Die. Cool.

One of those people that I said. Sounds good, doesn't it, Claire? What an uplifting tale. I love uplifting tales. Okay, speaking of uplifting tales, I am now going to talk about another book this week. I'm all about the books recently. I hate books, Claire. This one is called, it's a quarterly essay actually that comes out in Australia all the time, quarterly,

called Men at Work by Annabelle Crabbe, who just happens to be the other half of Chat 10 Looks 3, which is one of my favourite podcasts. She is a journalist and writer in Australia. She is hilarious and witty and intelligent. She does a lot of writing on politics and culture. She does a lot of brilliant shows as well, Kitchen Cabinet, where she cooks with politicians and just manages to get – Makes them relatable even though they're all terrible.

Yeah. She's just brilliant. She does lots of fantastic stuff. She's also written a lot of cookbooks as well, Special Guest being one of them, which is an excellent one. Anyway, this quarterly essay was fascinating. Her first book, The Wife Drought, which I also loved, looks at women at work in Australia and why it is that even though

they make up more than the men in terms of graduates coming out of university, they end up in managerial roles but then they're not represented anywhere near the top echelon of CEOs in Australia and why that is. And that was a really fascinating read as well. Just talking, the tagline is women need wives and men need lives. So she talks how if women had wives to look after their children and clean their houses for them, how much more they could get done.

And then the kind of the impediments for women. Isn't that called a servant or a maid or a housekeeper? Yeah, I mean because 50 years ago in Australia, if you were a woman in the public service like your mother was, you'd just lose your job. That's right, yeah. And all your super and everything. Yeah, and all your entitlements because you're seen to be

taking the job of a man in inverted commas. And so how far things have come for women in terms of us being included in public debate, being included in leadership roles and in the workforce. Men at work deals with the other side of it, which is that even though Sorry, go on. Greatest early bird. Even though women's roles have changed immensely in the last 50 years, men's roles have pretty much stayed the last 50 years, men's roles have pretty

much stayed the same, particularly when it comes to work. And I guess I would love to hear your perspective on this as well, right? Well, I have started to read this. It's really super interesting. Well, I guess I have a unique perspective because you were saying from the graph that you were like, look at this graph. And I'm like, I can't be looking at graphs right now. I just want to talk a little bit about this graph.

So it's done by the Commonwealth of Australia, CC. Basically it shows what happens to a father and a mother. This is obviously same-sex couples is a different kettle of fish altogether, but this is for these kind of gendered roles. A father and a mother when a child is born, right? Ready. So for a man, their work life does not change. The hour,

see that there, the employment, the hours that they do a week is about 45 hours, right? It does not change. This is the majority of Australians, right? For women,

it plummets. See, so it starts at about 35 hours, 40 hours a week, drops right down and barely recovers. Like it might get up to like half the amount of hours that she used to do before she had kids. You hear a lot of people being like, I'm going back part-time

or I'm going back whatever. Yeah, correct. Exactly. Yep, exactly. And that's up until their child is at least 12, right? What happens with that then is that women end up at the end of their life with less super, less entitlements, and also it means that to climb in their career progression,

they're held back from being able to do that as well because they've dropped so significantly out of the workforce. The other kind of things on this graph are interesting too, for parenting and childcare. For men, when it starts at zero, it kind of goes up to 15 hours a week for them and kind of peters off and drabbles down from there. Drabbles right down. Whereas women for parenting and childcare skyrocket up to 45 hours a week and kind of tapers off, but not really so much and still ends up being more than men even when their child is 12.

Yeah. Then the most depressing one is if you look at housework, right? Right. So men on average in Australia do 15 hours of housework a week, right? Okay. What do you think happens when they have a child? I don't know, Claire. I'm imagining it probably increases exponentially and it all works out evenly.

All right. It does not change. What, Claire? It does not change. Whereas, so that's housework, right? The amount of cooking, cleaning, washing, mopping, vacuuming, et cetera, et cetera, house maintenance, it doesn't change. Men do the same.

Yeah. Basically. Whereas for women, what do you think happens? I don't know. A lot more, obviously. Yeah, obviously. It skyrockets. It skyrockets.

Thanks for describing a graph. It's super entertaining. Well, you looked at it there. So basically what it is saying is when women have babies, their lives are turned upside down and really never quite ever restore back to the status quo. For men in general, on paper anyway, with those three things, nothing really changes that much.

But for those who are thinking, man, this sounds like a big old man-hating, man-biting set. No, it's not at all. It's actually not because, well, it is. No. Because this book, from what I've read talks about, there is lack of opportunity for men to be at home and it's not only expectations, but it's just the way the system is. Yeah. So interestingly in the U S there's precedent for men to be able to, cause there's obviously unpaid parental leave that they can take in the US up to 12 weeks, which is also the only OECD country that still does not have paid parental leave is the US.

Interesting. Australia only just got it recently. It's 18 weeks at minimum wage a few years ago. So we were the second last country in the OECD. Cool. Yeah, I know. Depressing. But interestingly, in the US, there are cases where because parental leave can be technically

taken by the primary carer, which could be either a man or a woman, but it's kind of goes unsaid that really it's the mother. And expectations are in workplaces that women will take it. Women are okay to work part-time and flexibly. But if men ask, generally the answer is no, or their career is hindered. And there's a lot of research gone into show that men also feel that as well. They feel like they shouldn't be asking because it's about, it's kind of like asking your boss for time out, time out, time off. We've, we've got a couple, we've got a friend who's a cop who was talking about reducing hours

or didn't want a particular promotion. What was it again? I can't remember. Yeah, it was that, yeah, it was, was was didn't want to go for a promotion because at the time it would have been long hours and he was just about to have a baby. And he was like, isn't your wife at home or whatever? What do you care? Just do it. Yeah, exactly. Or another friend whose partner is a lawyer and she wanted to go

and work full time and he wanted to stay home with the kids. But when he asked to do part time at his job, they just flat out said no. Yeah, please don't do it, yeah. Yeah, exactly. So interestingly in the US there has been precedent where people have sued their employees and won to say that they should be, as a man, just as entitled to get paid parental leave as a woman. But in Australia there are no cases because legislatively there's a clause

that says that women, that men can be discriminated against. So if they ask for paid parental leave, they are not necessarily going to be granted it. And legally they can be discriminated against because they're not a woman. And a lot of this obviously comes from top down because, again, from the limited part that I've read of it, they talk about, she talks about at the start how the difference between when Jacinta Arden had a baby and Scott Morrison had a baby.

Our Prime Minister, yeah. She was the New Zealand Prime Minister. And now there was a lot of question like how she was going to do it and who's going to look after the baby. But when he did it, it was just like the expectation was, well, yeah, his wife was going to do it. So obviously the people who are putting these policies in place. Ollie, relax.

We're talking about paid parental leave being equal across all fields. Yeah, the expectation is that men will have wives that will just look after kids, which means that when men have children, their career prospects actually skyrocket and for women it's seen to be the opposite. I know a lot of people, like a lot of my friends who have kids, want to be at home or at least want to split it so they do six months and their partner does six months and, or do some variation on that or part-time and whatever, but it's not necessarily

an option. Yeah. So it's not the lack of people wanting to do it. I know. Cause that's kind of one of the tropes around the traps in Australia is that, oh, why would men want to do that kind of unpaid work? You know, why would they want to spend time with their families, bloody blah. Gross. Exactly. But I think it's about having the option and trying to figure out what works right for your family. Who wouldn't want to be at home?

Being at home is the best thing in the world. I think part of the problem is this whole idea of a primary carer and secondary carer. Yeah. So primary carer is seen to be the mother and the secondary carer is the father. When really, I mean, the way that we look after our son is pretty much 50-50. We don't. Where is he right now? Doesn't matter. Who knows? But you know, I mean, we're very lucky in that we work together from home. Very unique situation. But one of the things that I think really makes a big difference that Annabelle

Graab talks about, and I thought this was so interesting, the chance of a man being much more involved in his children's lives in general, being better at caring for them, helping out more with the housework, being more of a hands-on dad, all can be traced back to how much time they spend at the newborn stage with their child. So in Australia at the moment, there's this kind of like two weeks of dad leave, basically, that often women will take a year off. Men will get two weeks of dad leave to kind of chuff off to the chemist and order the takeaway, like feed their daughter or old son at night. And then they chuff back off to work full time. And that's it. In that crucial stage, contrary to popular belief, nobody really

knows what the hell to do with a baby when they first arrive in the world. You've never had before. Exactly. And women don't have some like crazy like knowledge bomb. Well, some good mothers do, Claire. You didn't have that. That is true. But better people than you did.

No, but, you know, obviously there's breastfeeding, all those things that come into play and some women will love it more than others, some men will love it more than others, all of those things. Everyone's situation is different. However, there is research to show that if men are around in those crucial first six weeks, first eight weeks when you're both learning how to change nappies and feed your baby and they see how hard it is, they're therefore way more likely

to be more hands-on, more involved and do more housework. So you're saying make them do it. No, I'm saying give men the option to be able to be involved with their children. There's a really beautiful quote at the end and I know we're running out of time so I just want to read this little quote from a guy. His name is Hammond and he talks a lot about. John Hammond?

Yeah, John Hammond. Creator of Jurassic Park. Correct, exactly. Oh, my God. He should have spent more time with this kid. His actual name is Tim Hammond. He's a Perth barrister who was a politician in Labor and was thought to possibly be Labor's next Prime Minister, potentially.

And recently, quite controversially, he stood down from Parliament because he said it just wasn't working with the crazy hours with his young family and he could no longer do it. He missed his kids. And this is what he said. I don't think blokes lose any of their desire to add value to the family home, but we still take this caveman approach. We still haven't got through our heads that our true value isn't

what it used to be 20 30 40 50 years ago in terms of being the breadwinner our main way of being of value isn't to be this old-fashioned breadwinner being out of the house for 40 hours a week it's to be present with our kids and our partner if we're lucky enough to have one it's taking us forever to work that out once more of us work that out, the more acceptable it will be to get on the front foot and say, this is what I want. Yeah, fair enough. I mean, obviously that's not everybody in the world,

but I thought that was interesting. Some people hate their kids and want to go to work. There's nothing wrong with that. No, I just think there's, you know, I think being able to. Yeah, you want the choice. Be the choice. Yeah, have it flexible or both be primary carers and be involved with your kids. Whatever works for your particular situation.

Correct, exactly. And everyone be kind to themselves because parenting is a frigging hard thing to do. But the easiest thing to do is just don't have kids. That's the answer in a lot of ways. True. Anyway. That's the show, isn't it though? That's the show, yeah.

Look, if you want to reach the show suggestible pod on twitter and instagram we've probably got a facebook do we i don't know no we don't have a facebook plan of broadcasting has a facebook group somebody set that up all right somebody's not me uh and then also you can send us a review you can do it right on your app if you've got an itunes you open it up you give it a bloody five star if you want to just like this person this is svelte not skinny says wonderful and light well not today, but a wonderful mix of banter between a couple that obviously cares deeply about each other and some great suggestions. Aw, who was that?

That was from Svelte Not Skinny. Svelte Not Skinny. That's an ideal situation. Svelte Not Skinny sounds terrific. I know. Well done. Thanks, mate. Much appreciated.

Like a dolphin as opposed to a stick. All right. Now this is a recommendation which you can tweet at us at Suggestible Pod or Instagram. Why do I do that says, I have a suggestion for Mrs. Sunday Movies. If you've never watched Broad City, it's a weird, wacky comedy about two women living in New York City. I don't know why I said it like that.

New York City. New York. Where's my spaghetti? Forget about it. Get me a pizza why I said it like that. New York City. New York. Where's my spaghetti? Forget about it. Get me a pizza. Get me a yellow cab. There's the Empire State Building. Yeah. This doesn't sell it, but forget about it. It's like this. Forget about it. You gotta do it more like that. If this doesn't sell it, I don't know what will because it's one of the funniest shows I've ever watched.

Well, I agree. I love Broad City. I've seen every episode. And I use the GIFs on Instagram. Brilliant. But if you haven't watched it, do it. When's that last season? Is it out yet?

It's already been out, mate. Then I'm behind on Broad City. You are so behind. I'm not. Well, that's a good reminder. Thank you. Yes, Queen. Yes, Queen.

I hate that. Yes. I hate it. yeah i hate that yes i hate it yeah i know anyway thank you so much for listening yeah um everybody just everybody just shut up for a minute i'm just gonna lie down oh yeah go listen to that my man's got a call give me a minute just give me a goddamn minute, everyone. Thanks, Collings, for editing. Thanks, Collings. Bye. This podcast is part of the Planet Broadcasting Network. Visit planetbroadcasting.com for more podcasts from our great mates.

I mean, if you want. It's up to you. Hi, this is Katnett Unfiltered. If you know us, then you know that we do almost everything together. So accommodating seven kids and seven adults on vacation can be challenging. So we Airbnb it. And if you have a spare room in your house, you can Airbnb it. It's that simple.

You can even Airbnb your whole house while you are away. You could be sitting on an Airbnb and not even know it. Whether you could use extra money to cover some bills over something a little more fun, your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at airbnb.ca slash host.