The Chaser Report - Politics of the Playground

Episode Date: December 4, 2022

Dom's child is starting school, and looks to Charles and Andrew for advice on what social teachings to impart his offspring with. Probably don't let your kids listen to this episode. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gadigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report. It is Dom Knight, Charles Firth and Andrew Hanson with you today. Now, Charles and Andrew, you have both been through things that I'm going through. As we speak, I have to wrap up fairly soon because my daughter is at her kindergarten orientation. Yes. She's there.

She's going to Kendi next year, and they've taken her for 90 minutes just to sort of prep her. And I'm worried that because she's my daughter, she's already in the second contact with her new classmate's become a social leper. I'm worried that she's going to be like me. And I want to know, what do you do to survive with a bit more popularity and, you know, just self-respect. And I've managed to garner from my, from my life in the 45 years of it so far. Yeah. Because bullying is a problem at that school. Both my kids went to that same school and encouraging for you donnie there you go it's nice to hear but i think the main reason why bullying such a problem is because my kids are there and uh they're the bullies and because aren't they

they are they are but um angus is there this morning so he may come across uh your daughter and um and the point is that i i said right from the word go i see because i was bullied terribly at uh at high school as you know dom oh good good i'm very good very good very good. That's good. Bullying is bad, but if you have to make a choice between being bullied or being the bully, it's much better to be the bully than to be bullied. Oh, that's so true. Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes. And, you know, like, I think you want to ramp it up. Like, I think, you know, you start with, what I did with my kids is, you know, you start with Nerf guns and, you know, sort of. play things and stuff like that but you can buy you can buy non-sharp training knives and things like that you know because you don't want them to cut themselves no of course not get them get them familiar with you know training flick knives and things like that they're completely blunt they're

very safe um and then sharpen them up put them in their back their backpack and the good thing is you also make a bit of money on the side well they do at least oh very that's it's a business injury your thing child see it's interesting you come at it though you know you've got boys right whereas my i've got a daughter at school and that that's much more about the emotional oh which is far worse as well yeah of much much more hurtful much more hurtful so so if you can teach her a bit of kind of manipulation and how to exclude how to exclude others by forming a club just just of all of her own um right that'll that'll serve her very very well if she becomes the arbiter of what's cool.

Yeah, she should be the first person to set up the popular girls club. And then she's to find who the popular girl is. It's all about who announces first. Yeah. Yeah, it's like sort of running. Oh, it's like first move of advantage. Yeah. Absolutely.

Absolutely. Oh, that's very good. You've got to do that. Calling dibs on popularity. I like it. My other tip for you, Domney, for her, is that, you know, if she's going to public school, I find that they get terribly confused. You know, the anxiety and the nerves are compounded by the fact that every public school

is equipped with a PA system that they make these announcements which are utterly in order because the speaker quality is so poor so the whole day is punctuated by these barked orders I'm going to the principal's office and they will hone you,

and so, and the kids are just in a pan... My poor daughter's in tears because she never knows what's going on. I never know, if I'm there, I've not a clue where to go or what to do. So look, you know, You know, just what you might want to do, Dommy, is just invest some money buying a PA system for the school that actually works.

Or I could just buy her a loud hailer, couldn't I? Couldn't she just tell me what to do through a loud hailer in the playground? You know, parables a vacuum, as we know from political science, Charles. She could be the definitive source of when lunch had ended and began. Yeah. Yeah, that's a great idea. She can make the announcement. Or she can just pretend to understand, because no one's going to understand the announcements.

Oh. She can just pretend to understand. understand what's going on and just tell people to do things. Oh, that's, uh, that's Mrs. Handley. She says that you should all go and sit in the bathroom for half an hour now. Very good. Yeah. I guess because you're really unpopular.

Yeah. If she, if she, if she forms an alliance with, uh, with the teachers, this is what I'm thinking. Yes. Could work. Yes. Because the kids will come with, they'll come with lunch or they come with lunch money. Teachers make no, no money whatsoever. Yes.

If my daughter can extract all the money from all the kids with lunch orders, then she could split it with the teachers 50-50, and that would actually probably augment their salary quite considerably. She'd be the class favourite, too. The teachers love it when the kids bribe them. Like an organised crime boss. Yeah, that's a brilliant idea. I mean, that is a good strategy.

The only problem with that strategy at the moment, though, in terms of the education system, is that because our kids are going to public schools, and teachers are in high demand and private schools can afford to pay more, the general length of time that a teacher will work at a public school is down to about two and a half weeks. So she will have to continuously, I mean, it's good life skill to know

how to continuously chat up whoever their new permanent teacher is who will last two and a half weeks and then leave for a private school. Yeah, so there's just that sort of revolving door problem. them there. Yeah, that's right. I mean, these are prison skills too,

aren't they? This is the fantastic thing, as if she ends up on the inside later in life, you know exactly what to do. You know, you go up to the biggest, biggest person in the yard

and you stab them. Yes. Yeah. It's a very, or politics. If she goes into politics as well, knowing where to funnel the bribe strategically,

is a very good idea. Yeah. One of my sons, I'm not going to name who, because it's slightly embarrassing tale. I remember came home very upset. once when he was in about year sort of four or five and and we asked what was going on and it was

a Tommy's daughter my other daughter's fascinated by this it was a she's learning it was a bullying problem and we sort of got him eventually to sort of tell us who was bullying him and I can understand why he didn't want to tell us because it turned out that the person bullying him was in year one Oh wow That's embarrassing Vicious little cunt Right In year one

Who's Terrorising This sort of Who's twice his age Who happened to be my son And it was very sad But that's no good But my point is

That it's not too young To start Dom Like if they can Yeah Aim high And aim high Yeah Aim for the older kids

In fact You're younger daughter Dommy Like when you take her To the pick up and the drop-off. She should start trying to bully the year six kids. Well, that's what we're hearing. That's why she's interjecting.

She's practicing saying, I'll cut you. He's practicing saying, you know, give me your lunch money or I'll dump you in the bins. I feel intimidated. Whatever it is. I mean, one writer for the chaser, I don't want to name who it is, and it wasn't me, which is what you would think, regularly was placed in a bin back in their school days, which is made to stand in a bin. Oh, okay.

It was very unfortunate. It taught him a thing or two about life. I don't know that it was a good thing that taught him. Yeah, very bad thing. I think it scarred him forever. But it happened. So she's got to be the person putting the other people in the bin. Oh, gosh.

You must be talking about Craig Rukas. Yeah, I'm guessing Craig. He's obsessed with bins or something. He's got a lifelong obsession with bins and rubbish. You've known Craig for longer than I have both of you. We've both known him since very early. Can you see of any universe where Craig Ruccastle would be bullied? No, but in fact, within 10 seconds, the bully would be sucking up to him.

He would have put this person in the bin, I assume. I mean, that's where his war on waste begun, I would have. I just realized, yeah, we have a perfect resource for your daughter, Dom, which is just get Craig to explain how to do bullying. And that although I think probably actually the public don't realize what a terrible bully, Craig at least used to be. Oh, he was a monster? Yeah, he was a monster.

A monster. Yeah, they probably have. He threw things at my head on a regular. basis in the chaser office. I mean, I probably deserved it, let's face it, but Craig's skills. That was by agreement, don't know, that would be all. Craig's ability to just effortlessly master any situation. That's a great lesson to that. She's not going to learn that from me.

Maybe you should give Craig your daughter just permanently. Well, Craig doesn't have daughters. Yes. Craig's amazing, you know, fertility. just birthed boys to carry on the Rue Castle line. He probably wouldn't mind a daughter. Yeah. Well, this has been thoroughly depressing.

All right. Well, excellent. Okay. And so this will set her up to... And so what I would also say, Dom, is my son is currently the vice captain of your daughter's new school. Oh. Oh, he knows how it works. Yes.

He's got power. So he can... And one of the things that they do with the kindies is they do, peer support right so so the year sixes pair up with a couple of the kindies and you know help explain everything to them i think that's a perfect opportunity for your daughter to just um start bullying the year sixes that's good training yeah bullying the vice cat yeah yeah i mean she gets paired paired up with a buddy at my daughter's school they call it a buddy yeah so i'd say if she could start bullying the budd yes i reckon she'd be in with a

Well, actually, I've noticed in the playground, I don't know quite how it works, but there's a yellow bench called a buddy bench. It says buddy bench on it. What I'm envisaging is that any child who sits on that bench is immediately saying, please bully him. I was literally going to tell you that, which is never sit on the yellow bench. Tell her that, because that is literally, that's the, I have, I'm the Nigel loser character in this school. I have no friends. Yeah, it's the Nigel, no friends. Why would they have that?

I mean, I would have been on it every day in my primary school. It's handy, Dom. At my kids' school, they have a similar space. It's called the quiet play area. No doubt if you go there, you're probably just asking to be absolutely smashed, I would think. No, I'll tell you why they've got that yellow bench is because my son's year actually did the fundraiser to buy that bench, right? Oh. Yeah.

So that they would know who all the losers were to bully. And it's bright yellow, so it's really visible from a distance. It's kind of like a high. is and yellow literally means you know chicken and timid

so that's brilliant what a fantastic it should be lit it should be lit from beneath as well these are very good suggestions

I guess my only question in just considering the wisdom imparted to me while my daughter yells in the background is if you

understand these things why are the two of you not more alpha I mean let's face it you're not exactly you're not

the ones who are taking the lunch money away from people it's called childhood trauma Dom, That's what you got, isn't it, Charles?

I never got any trauma. I'm just a lovely, lovely man. That explains everything I do, Dommy. Yeah. Isn't it that you should have... What's that unconvinced pause? What's the pause? You're a horrible man, Andrew.

Yeah, you're meant to chime in agreement. No. Andrew, I do. I think you're lovely. I just think you're crushed. I think the world has destroyed you largely. And left you? left you a smoking ruin of a human

which I'd save myself as well I just don't think we're wrong I don't think we should have been allowed to have children really or raise them well maybe don't take it a school You could be one of those weird homeschooling sort of people You know I say weird they're not all weird

I'm sure some of them have very good reasons Not many of them Mostly probably not But maybe you should you could do that It's been enormously awful I've got to go and pick up my child now, and I will make sure that we do not leave the playground without extracting money from every single child there. Or a good luck, Dominic.

And then also just, you know, when you see her and she runs into your arms and gives you a big hug and, you know, she's expecting you to say, do you have a good time? Just say, you're a huge disappointment. You know, just to toughen her up, give her a few calluses. I mean, that's a very good idea because we all know when she becomes a teenager, she's going to be saying that to me. Yeah, yeah. just give us some fuel

some fuel to work with all right thank you so much Aguirre is from Roe we're part of the Acast Creator Network and you can give us money at chaser.com.com.com slash podcast

and if you don't I'll set my daughter on you.