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Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Adelaide festival of ideas.
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Thank you for joining us on a Sunday morning.
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My name is Jody Glass and I had the great pleasure of chairing this morning
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session on parent guilt, ladies and gentlemen.
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Thank you very much for joining us this morning. As I said,
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my name is Jody Glass and I'm chairing the session.
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My job is merely to facilitate conversation between our panelists and also a
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discussion with you towards the end of the session.
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I'm going to take this opportunity to now introduce our esteemed panel
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to immediate left is Paul Wallace. He's a paleontologist,
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he's a father of one child that he knows of and we'll get that
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his son is 12 years old.
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I'm gonna come back to Paul in just a second. We have Tasha carts,
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a musician and mother of two children, both boys. And they've joined us today,
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not to add to the guilt of being a parent.
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We have to bring them along to the work.
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Tasha is with the band called the Audrey. So you've,
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you've I know a fantastic band.
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They formed in 2006 and have been touring ever since.
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And her sons are seven and three,
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which means Tasha was both pregnant on the road.
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Which again is another form of guilt as well as being a touring musician,
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a broadcast and recording musician while being a mother.
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So we're going to hear from her about with juggle both of those things.
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We're also going to hear about a Tasha is she's had to be the mother to 30 year
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old men who she's on the road with.
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I'm not quite sure what's more challenging.
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Actually I do it specific to Romania and finally,
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John Giardini John is a child psychiatrist and is going to bring a
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wealth of information to all of us. Yes, he texts appointments for parents.
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In fact,
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Donna's is saying that that's the time he's doing most of his work now is to
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help parents understand their parenting and the children with home,
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or they're bringing up.
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I'm just going to go back to Paul before we open.
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I'm going to ask John time for now.
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There's a definition of guilt and definition of shame, John,
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as our core remark, as we met this morning, that he's a sperm donor,
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hence the cop.
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Was, some time ago.
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Was. Wasn't an offer. So
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[inaudible], So that's why he said, he's the parent of one son that he knows of
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. And we're going to in fact, tease that out a little bit more during the conversation, but first I'm going to ask John to speak to us about guilt and shame.
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I think there's a, a lot of overlap between those two concepts,
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but shame is more about my appraisal of myself as a
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person. I may not fall on short.
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Guilt is about my appraisal of my actions when I fall short.
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And so the positive side of guilt is that it offers an
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opportunity to repair damage that we've done.
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And so I would generally see guilt as a positive,
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but uncomfortable emotional experience that we have. Of course,
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the experience of guilt when a time justify is a bad thing.
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But I don't think on the whole parental guilt is something that we should
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feel bad about. Any more than we should feel bad about anger,
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anger can lead to destructive behavior,
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but anger can also lead to social challenges and very positive things.
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I've been a family and outside of affair.
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So shame I think is a potentially destructive emotion because in the
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state of shame,
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we just want to hide and run away and we don't take it upon ourselves to try and
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make a difference in the world, whether it's the world within the family or,
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or the world more broadly, but guilt,
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I think properly managed is a positive contribution to family,
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life and society.
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A friend of mine, a dear friend,
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he wouldn't get up in the morning if it wasn't for guilt,
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which I think is a good way to describe parenting,
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Tasha to speak to us about being on the road or pregnant.
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And now being on the road between parents,
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is there any shame or were you ever made to feel shame in that?
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I actually,
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so often when I'm finished a show and I'm out meeting the crowd,
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they're buying CDs and chatting to me, they say, where are your children?
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And I started to really me off because they're not asking the male musicians who
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have children that same question. So I started saying, oh, they're in the car.
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They find out at the window.
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Which shut people up pretty fast.
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But it is hard being away from them. I miss them a lot, you know, I mean,
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I'm sure every parent can relate to that feeling of, oh,
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it's going to be good to get up, you know,
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be kid-free for awaken again and do it.
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And then within a day I'm looking at photos of them on my phone and calling them
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and driving them crazy. So it is hard.
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It's hard to be. I mean, you know,
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I have a job that takes me away from them a lot when they were young,
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I took them with me,
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which was hilarious because I breastfed them both to 12 to 18 months.
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So yeah. Having to time the run, so to speak, to
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come back to your time. So I didn't that leaking
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oversharing a tiny bit,
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but I had I had one of my, one of them,
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I think the littlest one who's up there, he's three strapped to the front of me,
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you know,
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in one of those papoose things while I was sound checking and all these people
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were walking past and going and coming in and taking photos of me,
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like if it was some sort of strange anomaly to see a parent,
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a parent who's also in a band, it's like, well, you should stop that now.
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And you don't think that same guilt,
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they're trying to place that same field on the museum.
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Absolutely not. In fact, I've talked to mommy sessions about the same thing.
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And in fact, once I was a mom, every newspaper article about me said,
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musician, mum, mum of two, it would,
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even if I had just released a record,
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it would talk about my motherhood before my career.
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I remember cutting out an article from the paper in which somebody was
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describing Mick Jagger as a great dad.
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And the basis of that was I think he, you know,
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occasionally written a letter to his kid who lived in another country.
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Right, right, sent them a lot of money.
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Do you think that that we're trying to reduce us as
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parents or are we trying to shame us?
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We're definitely trying to make us feel guilty when we say, oh, we judge,
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we were talking a little bit about this earlier with judge,
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how the parents are there for coming up to the standards of parenting that we
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expect as normal or failing to meet those standards.
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And do you think that's what's happening there?
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Very much so. Yeah. Why are you out at night? You have children.
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I'm like I'm at work.
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We talked a little bit about this too. About the notion of work
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for you when the boys start to comprehend or get onto the
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swearing, comprehend the material. That is your work.
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I am a little worried about that.
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Obviously I've put three albums out before I had any children block your,
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block your ears children. But my work, my songwriting is,
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is very honest and raw.
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And I swear a little, I talk about sex.
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I talk about ex-boyfriends.
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I am worried about them getting to an age and going, oh mom, ewww.
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And do you think that will change their perception of you?
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I'm not sure possibly. Yeah. Will you?
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Will you see me through it? I don't know. I don't,
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it's really hard to know what they'll think is also the artistic side of it.
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Where I think if, if my sons grow up to really like rock music,
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they're going to be like, mom's music is really daggy. So there's that too,
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you know, there's that will they, will, they have respect for me as an artist.
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And do you think that's you feeling any guilt or shame about the work that you
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do?
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Well I was thinking when you were saying guilt is something where you can go
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back and you can correct things where I can't go back and change the records I
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made before I had children. Unfortunately.
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We feel guilty about, we can't change. We've done them,
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but it's a question of how we feel about them and also what we do if we've done
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damage. I mean,
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I don't think what you're talking about is done any damage to your children,
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but if we've done something that's done damage to our children, then to make,
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I make reparation and reparation, isn't undoing the damage we've done,
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it's doing something different and undertaking to change. And you know,
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it's not just like the man is voted his wife and then gives her a bunch of
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flowers. Like it's gotta be a genuine, you know,
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acceptance of responsibility for what you've done and,
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and somehow finding a way to make it good and equivalent correction of it,
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not just some kind of tokenistic apology.
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Have you got an example of that, John,
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that you've come to through your work practice?
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Well, I mean,
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I guess in with the parents I work with who are, you know,
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very transgressive, they've done things that they should feel guilty about.
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Those are parents whose infants have been removed from her care. And,
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you know,
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the reparation they do is by being,
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having the courage to acknowledge what they've done and what they've done has
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been wrong.
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And to undertake the painful process of changing as a person
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and recognizing the need to change as a person before they can be trusted to
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have their children back in their care. And you know,
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some people do that with amazing courage,
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people who have gotten into that predicament because the way they've been
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treated as children but are prepared to take the stand,
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to break that cycle of repetitive abuse.
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Do you think there's a moment where you have to actually be encouraged feelings
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of guilt in order to understand behavior?
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Well, I, I think, you know, the,
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the notion of confronting people with what they've done wrong can go in one of
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two ways.
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It can be a process of bringing people face to face,
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making them face up to what they've done,
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which is I'd argue potentially a constructive process,
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or there's the version of confrontation,
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which involves rubbing somebody's nose and what they've done, which is shaming.
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And I would argue usually destructive and only reinforces the,
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the bad behavior. So in my work, that's what I'm trying to do.
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Bring people face to face with things that they shouldn't have done,
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and also helping them to come face to face with things that shouldn't have been
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done to them and not to feel shamed because I've been abused or
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because they've grown up in poverty or whatever it is.
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It's a very complex set of emotions.
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And sometimes parental guilt is about simple things. We talked about swearing.
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At what point do we as a parent or do we,
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as a community say that it's okay to swear in front of the child or allow the
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child to swear. So Paul had some interesting takes on this.
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Well I'm firmly of the opinion that swearing
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is a fundamental part of Australian culture.
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And if you can't swear effectively, you are, you are sexually compromised.
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I think it's therefore the responsibility of the parents to train Metro.
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Hausler effectively, let's face it. You know,
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if you ever been confronted by someone who's gone, I mean,
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you can dismiss them out of hand because they can't swear if I did,
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then the question comes,
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what is an appropriate age to introduce your child
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to bottom and then bottom and work your way up all ships.
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And that probably comes in about 6,000 and then you go up the scale from there,
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I've actually taken the complete opposite approach.
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There's no such thing as age appropriateness in this field because
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sooner or later my child is going to be exposed to these words.
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So we may as well start out from day one. Let's,
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let's talk about,
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let's talk about the most obscene words that you can come up with and talk
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about how you use them effectively when you use them,
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when it's appropriate to swear when it's not appropriate for swear,
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and the amount of guilt that I have had to endure from his
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mother
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because this is all seen as age inappropriate.
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I think the whole concept of guilt really comes around
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the transgression of the law, the transgression of the norm.
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And so whenever you try and do something a little bit different,
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such as my approach to teaching my son,
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how to swear that's when parental guilt is
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either you bring it on yourself or it's imposed upon you from our side.
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You should run the classes, for kids, swearing classes.
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Swearing 101 for the 5 year old.
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Transgression of norms. I mean, I think it's a really important issue, isn't it?
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Because there are some norms that should be transgressed and others,
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it should be. So we should feel guilty in my sense of positive guilt,
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about transgressing norms that we recognize shouldn't be transgressed.
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But if we're trying,
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if we're being sort of little revolutionaries in terms of transgressing
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norms, that should be broken down, then that's of course the celebration,
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not guilt.
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And, and the whole question around bringing up,
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bringing another human being into this society the best
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place to live your life is on the edge. It's at those boundaries.
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And more often than not, I've found in life the best way to find the boundaries.
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Is it in your rear vision mirror?
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It's when you go over the boundaries and you can stop and say, okay, sorry,
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I have gone too far and you can wind it back,
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but unless you're living life on the edge,
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unless you're encouraging your kids to push boundaries,
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to explore boundaries, to get out there and do that kind of leave boring lines.
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And then that's when parental guilt should come in.
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How dare you bring your child up to be boring? Yeah.
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When my big boy was two, he had a truck that used to go
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[inaudible] And I'd be like, oh, sweetie, just, does it not go, brooom.
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No mommy. So he was a little 2 year old rebel.
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Love it, love it.
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Another classic example with my son Chester
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again,
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around sense of humor and there's loads.
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It's such a changing field.
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What is appropriate at what age to introduce your son says, oh,
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I've just ignored all of that, thrown everything at him. And you know,
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he was word perfect on all of the Monty Python films before he was seven.
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And it came back to bite me somewhat,
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but when I took him to Antarctica and on the way through, in Buenos areas,
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we had a day off.
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And so it took him just so show him the sites around Buddha's areas.
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And we're in the same Martine cathedral, which is the main cathedrals,
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whole of Argentina, very sacred place. It was very quiet.
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There was a mass going on down the other end.
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So everyone was being respectful and quiet. And at the top of his voice,
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he points to Jesus on the cross and goes, look, it's Brian.
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And then to try and extricate me from under the them knew where I was hiding.
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He said, don't worry that they don't understand they only speak jibberish. Now,
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a number of times when I've told those stories that some more
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pious than rational people have come back to me and said, well, obviously
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appalling attitudes for an eight year olds have, and it's like,
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it's an eight year old kid, don't
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go imposing your adult values. On my eight year old kid,
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he made a great and very humorous association. Give him compliments for that.
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So
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it feels like we're constantly through putting guilt in that it's trying to
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bring each other down rather than lift each other up in
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parenting. So how do we balance that
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kids okay with, oh, you're right. I've overstepped that boundary.
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How do we find that balance as a parent. Full declaration,
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I have a 13 year old daughter who is fully immersed as a teenager and
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10 year old son who had abandoned soccer this morning. He said, mom,
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will you watch me play? I said, no, honey, I won't.
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And I felt no guilt whatsoever.
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I had the perfect excuse being here today.
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So how do we balance those, those feelings of guilt?
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I should be there watching him and cheering him on.
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And yet I am still a full and rich human because here.
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Which is important for your children. I think,
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I think that particularly because I have sons that I think it's really important
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for them to see a woman with a career,
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as much as it would be nice to be home with them or, and I,
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neither of my children have ever actually been in childcare because the great
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thing about being a musician is you work on the weekends.
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So I have actually had a lot of time with my kids.
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I'm often away on the weekends,
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but I'm there Monday to Thursday and some weekends.
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And I also have a very supportive family who look after my kids a lot,
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but I want them, I want them to go, there's my mommy on the tele.
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I want them to feel proud of me and to see women having a life outside of the
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home and.
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And a work ethic. Yeah. Because actually you're setting a standard saying,
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this is,
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this is the expectation is how hard I want you to work because
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what you do is hard. Yeah.
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I also find it hard to tell people about being a parent,
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particularly small ones. It's boring. Sometimes it's monotonous.
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Gorgeous, intelligent child. I've got this. Yours is all right. Yeah.
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But we're made to feel guilty about even having nice feelings as a parent,
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John you're in a, quite a different world. So Paul, your son is 12,
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seven and three 13, very different world. Where are your children?
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24 to 31. Is that right? So,
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so your guilt lifecycle is in a different place now.
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Hopefully my guilt has passed me by, well and the damage is well and
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truly done.
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So do you think there is a period of which we no longer feel guilty as parents?
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Well It depends where they're got grounds to feel good. I mean, I, you know,
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I think some people have done things that they should feel guilty about for the
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rest of their lives. And we have to face that. I mean, we're, we're,
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we're talking at the edges at the kind of privileged gage of parenting at the
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moment.
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We're not talking about people who've really seriously damaged their children
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sometimes deliberately. So that's a,
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that's a different field of parental guilt.
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And, but, you know,
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on the hall where we're self-serving and our way of regarding
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ourselves. So if we feel a tinge of guilt,
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that's probably justified and it's probably justified at least that we reflect
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on that and wonder about it. And, you know,
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is there an opportunity to make good some of the stuff we've done in the next
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generation,
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or is there an opportunity to make good with other people in the community?
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Because, you know, focusing all of our energy,
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our own families is is,
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is in a way a form of justified selfishness.
330
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Now family first is really just a code way of saying me
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first. Not sure Where I'm going with this but.
332
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[Inaudible].
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You've raised two concepts though there's absolving guilt and also anticipatory
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guilt. We touched on those a little bit too spoke earlier.
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So absolving ourselves we kind of want to do that because we feel some shame
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about some things we want to do. That's okay.
337
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Sometimes you've indicated it's not.
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Is that the area that it tends to be working in?
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Well, I think if we, if,
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if we don't take responsibility for things that we've done wrong,
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then we're diminished as individuals.
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And if we don't do it as society has,
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we can see in Australian society all the time, we're diminished as a society.
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So, you know,
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if John Howard felt a bit more guilt, that would have been good for Australia.
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One
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of the other things we were talking about,
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and you've touched on this about good guilt, bad guilt,
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what would be some symptoms for us as parents about bad guilt?
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I think when we're talking around the idea of
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guilt being used as a mechanism
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to conform to societal norms, I think
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with the
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non-conformance generations that have sprung up since
355
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I don't think that that's particularly constructive guilt,
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those are gilts that needs big challenge at turn down and dismissed,
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but then when you talk about guilts that
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imposed or, or derived from
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the appropriate height of your
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child, for instance,
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anyone who's suffering parental guilt around the issue of vaccination
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and should, why should I feel guilty?
363
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Because I don't have my child vaccinated that then is a
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much greater crime, not just against your child,
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but against the society. And you're,
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that's where I think you, we're talking about positive parental guilt.
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So yeah, there are two extremes there. I think.
368
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You must feel some well you've clearly called out some attempts at bad guilt
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when they say oh well ou're not at home with your children.
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Yeah or where are our kids, like, if I'm not looking after them,
371
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then they're in the car with a bag of chips. Yeah.
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I think people trying to put guilt on working moms is a real big
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issue that I certainly have felt a lot. And I know it,
374
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you know, it gets talked about, but it's very real it's I,
375
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I was really shocked at how noticeable it was,
376
00:24:16.990 --> 00:24:18.140
how tangible it was.
377
00:24:19.250 --> 00:24:23.320
And how quick we are to punish others. Yeah.
378
00:24:23.390 --> 00:24:26.780
And then we feel it ourselves of why have I done this?
379
00:24:27.470 --> 00:24:31.070
I've handed my child to childcare or not abandoned my child to childcare.
380
00:24:31.490 --> 00:24:34.010
We also spoke about some of the bigger issues,
381
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the choice to have a child and the choice to not have children.
382
00:24:39.230 --> 00:24:43.820
And it's a big thing. And we, most of us go into parenthood knowing.
383
00:24:46.750 --> 00:24:51.670
I would think the greatest parental guilt is having kids at all. When you,
384
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the world is already overpopulated the worst people to bring into the world more
385
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Australians because we are so resource hungry
386
00:25:02.290 --> 00:25:05.320
for every Australian child that we bring into the world,
387
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they will use something like 20 times the resources that a
388
00:25:10.610 --> 00:25:14.530
Bangladeshi child will consume during their lifetime.
389
00:25:15.670 --> 00:25:20.650
We passed the carrying capacity of the world back in the 1960s around about
390
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when I was born. So surely from a,
391
00:25:25.210 --> 00:25:27.310
an existential global perspective.
392
00:25:27.910 --> 00:25:31.750
Even the fact of having children should be the greatest parental guilt,
393
00:25:32.260 --> 00:25:36.370
but then that gets offset against the, the point that you made earlier that
394
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so many people are made to feel good, even not having kids. You know,
395
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as soon as you get married,
396
00:25:43.810 --> 00:25:47.440
I got married to shut people up who were saying, oh,
397
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when are you going to get married? So we got married. And then,
398
00:25:50.171 --> 00:25:53.440
then they start on. So when you're going to have kids, it's like, you know,
399
00:25:53.530 --> 00:25:55.630
it's a no win situation.
400
00:25:56.680 --> 00:25:59.530
Or when you just had it, and the first thing that says me having another one.
401
00:26:02.770 --> 00:26:06.040
And I lost three pregnancies between my two children.
402
00:26:06.580 --> 00:26:09.700
So when people ask me that often I was not long out of a miscarriage,
403
00:26:09.701 --> 00:26:13.150
so it was very personal and confronting.
404
00:26:13.600 --> 00:26:17.980
And a couple of times I went, well, I just had a miscarriage. Thanks for asking,
405
00:26:19.480 --> 00:26:20.020
you know?
406
00:26:20.020 --> 00:26:23.110
Yeah. And what was the response? Because that's...
407
00:26:23.140 --> 00:26:27.910
Shock. Embarrassment. Yeah. Hopefully,
408
00:26:28.120 --> 00:26:30.760
hopefully. I mean, you can say it to a friend. He got,
409
00:26:30.770 --> 00:26:32.380
are you guys thinking about having another baby,
410
00:26:32.381 --> 00:26:34.930
but you can't say to a stranger. Yeah.
411
00:26:35.980 --> 00:26:39.250
And that's a very difficult topic.
412
00:26:40.150 --> 00:26:43.880
Miscarriage and stillbirth. Yeah. Did you,
413
00:26:44.580 --> 00:26:45.840
did you feel the need to recover?
414
00:26:47.380 --> 00:26:49.460
Do you feel any guilt about what had happened to you?
415
00:26:51.390 --> 00:26:53.910
The first one was the worst cause I was over three months.
416
00:26:55.110 --> 00:26:59.700
That was pretty devastating. The second one was ectopic.
417
00:26:59.730 --> 00:27:02.850
So there was, there was no saving it. And the third,
418
00:27:02.851 --> 00:27:05.130
I was only about seven weeks or something.
419
00:27:06.660 --> 00:27:09.990
And I was about to give up trying to have a second cause it was too traumatic.
420
00:27:10.860 --> 00:27:12.660
And then when I got pregnant again, I went,
421
00:27:12.750 --> 00:27:16.710
if this one doesn't work I'm done and that's little Sebastian up there he's
422
00:27:16.710 --> 00:27:16.974
three
423
00:27:18.690 --> 00:27:21.690
and a dinosaur level obsessed with dinosaurs,
424
00:27:23.730 --> 00:27:26.460
paleontologist, whose son didn't like dinosaurs.
425
00:27:31.530 --> 00:27:32.850
Following on from that point,
426
00:27:32.880 --> 00:27:37.710
there's another parental guilt that we experienced in that.
427
00:27:38.970 --> 00:27:43.200
You know, Chester was was we slipped up in the contraceptive.
428
00:27:43.201 --> 00:27:44.970
We never intended to have a child.
429
00:27:46.350 --> 00:27:51.330
And one of the most unexpected things that we
430
00:27:52.020 --> 00:27:56.970
experienced was the number of close friends who came to us and said how lucky
431
00:27:56.971 --> 00:28:00.510
we were, because unbeknownst to us, they've been on IVF.
432
00:28:00.780 --> 00:28:04.050
They have been trying and trying and trying to have kids.
433
00:28:04.650 --> 00:28:08.340
And I don't think it's the guilt in this case,
434
00:28:08.850 --> 00:28:13.080
but it's a profound sadness when you realize
435
00:28:13.410 --> 00:28:18.360
how many people are out there who really, really want to have kids.
436
00:28:18.420 --> 00:28:22.530
And they can't have them. It's incredibly incredible.
437
00:28:22.980 --> 00:28:24.360
People have complete strangers saying to them.
438
00:28:24.361 --> 00:28:27.330
So when are you guys having children? Yeah, terrible.
439
00:28:28.861 --> 00:28:33.720
I've watched the film line on the weekend on
440
00:28:35.430 --> 00:28:38.190
actually the family for three of us were solving the other one.
441
00:28:38.280 --> 00:28:41.030
And my son was trying to turn the movie off to stop us from sulking.
442
00:28:43.650 --> 00:28:45.420
But how do you protect crybaby?
443
00:28:46.670 --> 00:28:50.790
He was anguished at our anguish, which was a beautiful feeling of empathy,
444
00:28:50.791 --> 00:28:55.680
but the line that Nicole Kidman character, she said,
445
00:28:55.681 --> 00:28:58.770
we chose you. We chose to adopt you too,
446
00:28:59.430 --> 00:29:02.730
because we thought there were already enough children in the world.
447
00:29:02.731 --> 00:29:05.760
And it was that really resonated with me. It's back to your point about them,
448
00:29:06.120 --> 00:29:10.400
the notion of environmental concerns of an over populated country or
449
00:29:11.190 --> 00:29:12.023
populate.
450
00:29:12.810 --> 00:29:17.400
There's a guilt that children place on us apart from what my son does daily
451
00:29:17.880 --> 00:29:19.440
is around choices that we make.
452
00:29:21.630 --> 00:29:25.530
Oh yeah I am regularly guilted by eyesight about art that you haven't done the
453
00:29:25.531 --> 00:29:29.160
recycling properly, that why are you driving the car in,
454
00:29:29.161 --> 00:29:33.480
when you can take the train and preserve the planet for mental inherit?
455
00:29:33.481 --> 00:29:34.500
When I grow up, it's like,
456
00:29:39.640 --> 00:29:40.770
[inaudible] It's moments like that you can't send them back to where they came
457
00:29:40.771 --> 00:29:42.640
from. I've tried to sell mine.
458
00:29:46.890 --> 00:29:49.530
Jon, some of the other reflections for you that that's a very
459
00:29:51.060 --> 00:29:55.190
complex topic, the notion of choice to have a child and not to have a child.
460
00:29:55.350 --> 00:29:57.690
And in the context of an populated planet.
461
00:29:57.720 --> 00:30:01.250
And for me that what are we leaving our children to? What,
462
00:30:01.251 --> 00:30:05.310
what are we going to leave this planet? Do ou deal with that in your work,
463
00:30:05.311 --> 00:30:06.750
or is it too much about.
464
00:30:07.910 --> 00:30:12.900
Busy enough dealing with it in myself? Really all of the choices I make,
465
00:30:12.901 --> 00:30:17.610
like eating meat and having three children and things that
466
00:30:17.670 --> 00:30:21.330
are choices that I shouldn't make,
467
00:30:22.110 --> 00:30:22.943
I make them.
468
00:30:23.100 --> 00:30:27.630
And guilt is an engine to make me reconsider those things.
469
00:30:27.631 --> 00:30:31.770
Whether I'm taking the action on that, I guess is the question.
470
00:30:33.000 --> 00:30:37.170
And do you fix up the recycling? I'm not allowed not to.
471
00:30:41.040 --> 00:30:44.250
My son tells me off the swearing, sorry, proudly
472
00:30:46.820 --> 00:30:47.653
putting his hand up. Mummy don't say that word.
473
00:30:50.610 --> 00:30:52.800
And he didn't start doing that until he went to school.
474
00:30:53.910 --> 00:30:55.830
So obviously someone else has taught him about naughty words,
475
00:31:09.690 --> 00:31:10.920
[Inaudible] at least you can spell it, honey.
476
00:31:15.240 --> 00:31:18.090
I suppose there's also known when it's a adjective and it's a verb when it's a
477
00:31:18.091 --> 00:31:18.924
noun. Yeah.
478
00:31:21.210 --> 00:31:25.590
Usually nouns verbs and adjectives. It's too powerful to leave out of the...
479
00:31:26.700 --> 00:31:27.533
And used well.
480
00:31:31.080 --> 00:31:32.190
Oh indeed, I think it was Billy Connelly.
481
00:31:32.790 --> 00:31:35.040
Give me another word for fuck and I'll gladly use it.
482
00:31:37.990 --> 00:31:40.650
I can see some eager faces.
483
00:31:40.651 --> 00:31:45.000
And I'm wondering if at this moment there's a hand belted up there.
484
00:31:45.270 --> 00:31:47.430
Wondering if there would be some questions from the floor,
485
00:31:47.431 --> 00:31:49.140
we've got three mikes here. We've got to helper.
486
00:31:49.201 --> 00:31:54.060
Who's going to rip one from the hand and I'm going to start here and then work
487
00:31:54.061 --> 00:31:58.620
my way across. So could stand up today is about, about questions,
488
00:31:58.621 --> 00:32:00.000
not statements.
489
00:32:00.900 --> 00:32:01.890
So many questions.
490
00:32:03.590 --> 00:32:07.030
There's been a lot of obviously guilt and the,
491
00:32:07.680 --> 00:32:11.190
the indication of your guilt implies that there is a right and wrong in the
492
00:32:11.191 --> 00:32:14.510
first place. And that would depend on where you come from, what,
493
00:32:14.511 --> 00:32:16.590
what tells you you're living in all that sort of stuff. Right?
494
00:32:16.860 --> 00:32:19.380
So that in itself is unhelpful.
495
00:32:19.740 --> 00:32:24.510
And also means that we all weigh between different gifts at all times. Right.
496
00:32:25.860 --> 00:32:30.510
what I'm trying to figure out is we say w what is right and wrong
497
00:32:30.990 --> 00:32:35.920
with all the talk of guilt and what is happening as a result of that
498
00:32:36.060 --> 00:32:37.140
guilt, like everybody's feeling guilty.
499
00:32:37.530 --> 00:32:41.540
What are the implications of that guilt on our behavior as parents?
500
00:32:41.541 --> 00:32:43.520
And how does that impair us as parents?
501
00:32:43.970 --> 00:32:46.450
And with all of the guilt that's out there,
502
00:32:46.640 --> 00:32:49.820
there's judgment is given them that sort of stuff. How do we change that?
503
00:32:50.300 --> 00:32:53.120
What do we, what do we do if we're all feeling guilty about stuff,
504
00:32:53.121 --> 00:32:56.930
and it's actually creating problems for us, then what's the point in it.
505
00:32:57.640 --> 00:33:01.670
And the first place and how do we stop that from happening so that we can
506
00:33:01.671 --> 00:33:03.680
actually free ourselves to be better parents?
507
00:33:06.160 --> 00:33:06.341
Look,
508
00:33:06.341 --> 00:33:11.290
I think the positive side of guilt is not because you
509
00:33:11.291 --> 00:33:13.630
know, what I'm talking about as positive guilt is not,
510
00:33:13.631 --> 00:33:17.710
when we recognize we've transgressed somebody, else's moral judgments,
511
00:33:18.010 --> 00:33:20.500
it's rare, but when we've transgressed our own moral judgment,
512
00:33:20.530 --> 00:33:21.610
so we should feel guilty.
513
00:33:22.210 --> 00:33:26.470
And that offers us the opportunity to make reparation for having done that.
514
00:33:27.250 --> 00:33:32.080
I think if we're feeling guilty about what somebody else thinks we should do
515
00:33:33.700 --> 00:33:36.790
that invites us to think is, is that a view I share,
516
00:33:37.300 --> 00:33:41.620
but that's more likely to be the bad kind of guilty our responses to being
517
00:33:41.650 --> 00:33:43.120
blamed by another person.
518
00:33:43.830 --> 00:33:47.200
Thank you. It's a question for Dr. Jureidini. earlier in your speech,
519
00:33:47.201 --> 00:33:50.500
you talked about the idea of people who are presumably damaged,
520
00:33:50.710 --> 00:33:55.690
who do things to their children which were caused by what
521
00:33:55.691 --> 00:33:56.800
had been done to them.
522
00:33:57.910 --> 00:34:01.630
How fluid is this concept of causation in that context,
523
00:34:02.080 --> 00:34:05.620
and what should people do about the things that have been done to them,
524
00:34:05.621 --> 00:34:06.610
which are so damaging?
525
00:34:08.620 --> 00:34:11.320
Oh, you picked me up on over-simplifying really,
526
00:34:11.321 --> 00:34:15.580
it's not wanting to suggest that there's a kind of one-to-one relationship
527
00:34:15.610 --> 00:34:20.050
between how the person's been treated and how they then treat their children.
528
00:34:23.050 --> 00:34:24.010
So
529
00:34:26.950 --> 00:34:31.750
there's a wonderful line from Phillip lock and I you up your mom and dad.
530
00:34:33.550 --> 00:34:38.530
I think there's a kind of tension between the degree to
531
00:34:38.531 --> 00:34:43.210
which we've been up by other people's influence on us and the degree to which we
532
00:34:43.211 --> 00:34:46.060
have to take responsibility for having factor by ourselves.
533
00:34:46.750 --> 00:34:51.340
And I think a lot of therapy in
534
00:34:51.341 --> 00:34:55.460
my case and parenting and other in
535
00:34:55.990 --> 00:35:00.700
another role is about trying to find that the balance between to what
536
00:35:00.701 --> 00:35:05.290
extent do I need to acknowledge that I'm a person who's been damaged by my
537
00:35:05.291 --> 00:35:09.550
experience and hold other people responsible for,
538
00:35:09.820 --> 00:35:14.170
and to what extent do I need to hold myself responsible for what I've done
539
00:35:14.620 --> 00:35:17.620
and you know, that kind of shifts and is fluid.
540
00:35:18.100 --> 00:35:20.440
I'm not sure whether I'm answering your question, but I think.
541
00:35:26.010 --> 00:35:28.640
Thank you. Next question for the check up the...
542
00:35:40.910 --> 00:35:40.910
Thank you.
543
00:35:40.910 --> 00:35:44.420
Is it still significant that the correct human posture is the squat for sitting,
544
00:35:44.960 --> 00:35:47.900
for correct elimination of waste for proper digestion,
545
00:35:48.260 --> 00:35:53.000
facilitating the peristaltic wave of intestinal motor pump donk
546
00:35:53.090 --> 00:35:57.920
engine and yet the first thing we feel on birth is shit
547
00:35:58.310 --> 00:36:01.700
on the buttocks. It is basically true.
548
00:36:01.701 --> 00:36:03.470
That shit goes down,
549
00:36:04.190 --> 00:36:07.760
but as soon as many are born out of the amniotic, the nappy,
550
00:36:08.270 --> 00:36:11.870
very functional, practical, and even beneficial for the parents.
551
00:36:12.380 --> 00:36:14.990
But as soon as that first nappy was clapped on,
552
00:36:15.260 --> 00:36:20.150
then shit came out and up and down and around and every
553
00:36:20.151 --> 00:36:21.680
which way and loose.
554
00:36:24.830 --> 00:36:26.900
We might take that as a statement though,
555
00:36:26.901 --> 00:36:29.330
I'm sure my son would like to answer a poop question.
556
00:36:30.530 --> 00:36:34.130
I wonder if you could comment on the guilt associated with divorce and
557
00:36:34.131 --> 00:36:34.964
separation?
558
00:36:37.700 --> 00:36:39.290
Oh, that's a tricky one.
559
00:36:40.280 --> 00:36:44.600
I'm separated from my boys dad but remarried.
560
00:36:45.920 --> 00:36:48.830
And I think that was absolutely the best thing for them
561
00:36:50.840 --> 00:36:52.910
because I, I didn't feel safe in that relationship.
562
00:36:53.570 --> 00:36:57.160
So I think that I try really hard not to feel guilty about that,
563
00:36:58.010 --> 00:36:58.850
although that does take work.
564
00:37:00.920 --> 00:37:04.640
Yeah. When I separated from my son's mother
565
00:37:06.170 --> 00:37:11.060
we made a conscious decision that at the center of all of
566
00:37:11.061 --> 00:37:13.340
our actions was his happiness
567
00:37:15.410 --> 00:37:18.680
and that he should feel no repercussions,
568
00:37:18.710 --> 00:37:21.080
no implications.
569
00:37:21.081 --> 00:37:24.650
And the fact that we'd separated and by doing that,
570
00:37:25.670 --> 00:37:27.840
I think he's come through. Right. You know, he,
571
00:37:27.841 --> 00:37:32.030
he gets two Christmases every year. He gets twice the number of presence.
572
00:37:32.450 --> 00:37:36.850
He's got two bedrooms, he's got two laboratories, you know, he's, he's,
573
00:37:36.851 --> 00:37:39.170
he's been each time really well out of the separation,
574
00:37:39.740 --> 00:37:42.110
but I think you do as parents,
575
00:37:42.440 --> 00:37:46.970
you do need to make a conscious effort for the happiness and the
576
00:37:46.971 --> 00:37:49.640
welfare of the children in the separation.
577
00:37:50.030 --> 00:37:54.320
The separation is not about you and your partner. It's about the kids.
578
00:37:56.210 --> 00:37:57.080
That must be a daily challenge.
579
00:38:00.890 --> 00:38:04.220
It was at first, it was at first, but now it's just second nature.
580
00:38:06.020 --> 00:38:08.060
Yeah, I'm still on good terms with his mom.
581
00:38:08.640 --> 00:38:13.630
We have a really healthy custodial and fluid custody
582
00:38:14.930 --> 00:38:19.610
set up so that, you know, essentially it's two weeks off, two weeks off,
583
00:38:19.670 --> 00:38:23.570
but if something comes up, I'm like, she's taking the in week after next week.
584
00:38:23.810 --> 00:38:26.270
That's supposed to be my week, but who gives about it?
585
00:38:26.271 --> 00:38:29.330
Let's not make an issue of it. He's going to be happier scheme.
586
00:38:29.331 --> 00:38:30.440
So let's make that happen.
587
00:38:31.790 --> 00:38:34.880
Once you get into that mindset its actually surprisingly easy to do.
588
00:38:40.540 --> 00:38:42.540
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
589
00:38:42.760 --> 00:38:46.300
My stuff is just money and possessions, but
590
00:38:49.150 --> 00:38:52.120
you realize that they're not, what is really important in life.
591
00:38:53.340 --> 00:38:54.850
What's important is happiness.
592
00:38:56.710 --> 00:38:58.360
Well we've talked about guilt where the,
593
00:38:59.220 --> 00:39:02.380
how the bad actions have been identified and recognized, you know,
594
00:39:02.500 --> 00:39:06.340
what people have done, but there's another kind of guilt as,
595
00:39:06.790 --> 00:39:10.720
as the children are older. And we think basically, okay,
596
00:39:11.170 --> 00:39:15.100
then they're into drugs. They have marital difficulties themselves.
597
00:39:15.550 --> 00:39:17.710
They support the Adani coal mine. They do all sorts of things.
598
00:39:21.090 --> 00:39:25.290
Boy what did you do to your kids? [inaudible].
599
00:39:25.740 --> 00:39:26.700
And that's when the guilt comes. The unfixed guilt,
600
00:39:27.240 --> 00:39:30.630
what on earth have we done wrong? What did we do wrong?
601
00:39:30.631 --> 00:39:35.190
Could we have done this better? Could we have done? And how do we handle that?
602
00:39:36.210 --> 00:39:38.190
Almost an inverse case of that.
603
00:39:38.280 --> 00:39:41.610
We mentioned in our discussions before this session,
604
00:39:42.090 --> 00:39:46.570
and that's the case of David Hicks and his dad and the fact that they,
605
00:39:46.740 --> 00:39:50.790
you had a father who was doing 100%,
606
00:39:50.820 --> 00:39:55.050
what a father should do, and that standby his son, no matter what.
607
00:39:55.530 --> 00:39:59.460
And the public pillaring that that man suffered the public,
608
00:39:59.520 --> 00:40:04.050
the parental guilt was heaped on him from the prime minister down was
609
00:40:04.051 --> 00:40:08.850
unconscionable. So you know, as far as I was concerned,
610
00:40:08.970 --> 00:40:13.200
David Hicks, bad Terry Hicks. He should've got father of the year. In fact,
611
00:40:13.201 --> 00:40:17.670
he should got father of the decade. So I don't,
612
00:40:18.600 --> 00:40:22.080
I said, Come at your answer a different way.
613
00:40:22.140 --> 00:40:27.120
I think there has to be a point where you have to allow
614
00:40:27.150 --> 00:40:31.530
your kids to be responsible for their own actions.
615
00:40:32.190 --> 00:40:35.970
So if they go off and join one nation,
616
00:40:36.780 --> 00:40:37.613
that's no reflection on you.
617
00:40:44.100 --> 00:40:46.650
I think we're almost out of time.
618
00:40:46.651 --> 00:40:49.710
Is there anyone else who would like to ask a final question.