The one where we discuss sharing the load and THAT Robert Irwin ad campaign

Women are working more than they ever have before while also doing just as much around the house as they were twenty years ago. Rhi, Katie and Skye discuss how they manage sharing the load while juggling it all. Recommendations this week are dominated by chat about THAT Robert Irwin campaign that went viral. Crikey. Have a laugh, come top up.

The episode is best paired with a margarita - naturally!

Transcript

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Welcome to Topup three women, three perspectives, figuring out womanhood, motherhood, and everything in between. Grab a drink, take a breath. You're in good company sky. Katie, are you ready for a topup? I. Yay. Hello. Hello. So good to be back. I can't even tell you how much I need a top up. Oh my gosh. Me too. Me too. How, how has your week been? You two? Oh, manic situation. No change. Oh my God. I Just said to a work colleague, I need to go and record this podcast with my friends. And we're just dealing with a really challenging work thing at the moment. And she was like, how can you get your head out of work and straight into podcast and friend stuff? And I was like, you don't understand how much I need this. It's a necessity. Like I will put my head in this other space because yes, do I need my girl, need a breather? It's like H2O. it really is. How about you, Katie? Yeah. Good. I'm solo parenting this week, so it's just go, go, go. Really trying to find a pocket of time in the school days, which I don't know why it surprises me every week, but it feels like there's none before pickup time. There's None for us. And we have nine till three. You've got it so much worse. Yeah. I don't know why I think I can achieve the things I can achieve. spoiler alert, you can't don't set out to achieve anything on a school day. lower the expectations. I really need to do that. maybe set yourself one little achievable thing and then you'll feel like you've at least got something done. I think you're onto something. eat breakfast. One load of washing done before I have to, pick up I'm happy. I was thinking more like a work task, but Okay. Oh yeah. Work task is good. Well, actually that's a good segue for our topping. Perfect segue. Perfect segue. Although Riri, I should ask how your week's been. Oh, it's been swell. We've got parent teacher interviews today. I'm out doing flower deliveries as we speak, and I was saying to my boss, which is my mother-in-law I need to go and do deliveries because I need to record this. Podcast and she just looked at me like, what do you mean? How can you record a podcast while you're on the road doing deliveries? Like I love this multitasking, bomb me too. Like the best thing ever. And it's also throw back to our original top up days when all we did was record in the car. So yes. But I am very impressed, and mind you guys, she's looking super glamorous while she's doing it too, As always. But I think that is a good segue because we wanted to talk about this study that's come out in the last couple of weeks, who was it done by? The household income and labor dynamics in Australia. Never heard of you. But what their long-term survey has pinpointed is that they tracked the daily habits of more than 17,000 people in Australia since 2001. And they've released the latest data, which goes up to 2022. And basically they've found that men are doing the same amount of housework on average as they were 20 years ago. women are spending more time in employment. Compared to two decades ago. But somehow we've increased, our employment workload, but we've also stayed the same with our household workload. I think they're gonna be buried today actually. Yeah. I have to preface this by saying for my household, I thankfully have a partner who is very good at pitching in. But Even just last night, I was talking to him about all the emails that I received yesterday while I was at work, from school, from swimming, from childcare, and all the different admin tasks and payments that I have to make and excursion things and bake sales and all those things that I have to. He was like, I don't get those emails. And I was like, okay, well we're changing that. you're on the list now. Ben you dubbed yourself in. But as I said, he is super hands-on and I'm so thankful and grateful. We definitely operate as a team. He does a lot of cooking for the household and, is really hands-on with the kids. this, study really made me stop and think for a minute. What about you guys? I feel like I'm coming from a very unique. Perspective in the last 12 months. It's no secret that I have a house lady but I also live in a gigantic house in Vanuatu at the moment, which has never been my dream. I love my small house in Guru and I don't want for more when I return. I could not keep up with this house on my own. the kids' bedrooms are one end and the living is at the other end, and they make a mess from one end to the other every single day. I very much do need some help in the house if I'm gonna do anything other than clean all day. My husband works a lot but he is very hands on. he is actually, The neat freak in our house, if we have people coming over, I'm like, we have kids. We live in this house, so what if there's a few things on the floor? He will spend two hours running around, picking up everything because he loves the idea of having a display home. So we're very different On that wavelength. But I will say when it comes to anything to do with the kitchen cooking lunch boxes and stuff like that it is very telling in this house because our kitchen has four walls and a tiny window, and I am essentially excluded from all family activities when anybody needs to eat. with children. Around the clock all the time. it has become very obvious to me how much time I spend in the kitchen, and if you do not live in an open plan setting, how much you miss out on family time. Yeah. Wow. That's such an interesting point. Kay. I hadn't actually thought about that, Yeah, you've just got the little gecko in your top window to look at while you're doing all of that to keep you company. That's exactly right. He's my only little friend in there. I walk in one door and lunch comes out the other side and everyone's like, oh, mom, you're back. on top of that, as you mentioned, it's all the school stuff, I do all the pickups and drop offs and all the sick days and all the doctor's and dentist appointments But yes, that is our current dynamic. Yeah, I think it's as much the mental load, isn't it? Which they probably haven't factored into this survey. Like not only are we doing the housework, but it's also managing the household. Absolutely. Which needs to be factored in. Yeah, it's knowing when the toilet paper's getting low and if you have a spare tube of toothpaste in the cupboard for when this one runs out, and all these tiny things like do the kids have a bit of room in their school shoes? Do they have a spare pair ready to go? Like all these tiny little things that you are constantly juggling in your mind, I think that's a real weight. Okay. I need to chime in here. So. Miles has always been the breadwinner and he's always worked more hours than me. Even when I worked full time, he worked more hours than me, so it was always assumed that I would do all these sort of house worky things and he's always done the stereotypical bins and organizes my car. I've always been happy to cook do the cleaning and run errands However, in times where I have done more hours, it has become more even. I think it comes down to personalities, which is sort of what Kay was touching on just then with Alex's personality. there's always going to be things you may need done to clear your head or, I don't know. I, the other thing, yeah, a way to stack the dishwasher, you know, miles won't, lemme stack the dishwasher sometimes if I've had a particularly bad week of jamming everything in there. But I also think it comes down to us to say for example, our kids do extracurricular things, multiple, and I delegated miles to some of them and said, I'm signing you up with your email address. I will not receive any communication at all. It's all going to you. So that's your responsibility, and I'm tapping out of this. So he gets all that and does it all. he gets the kids ready for that sport and those things, sometimes I don't think some things cross their mind. It's not obvious to them like the toothpaste thing. Yeah, totally. Sometimes we have to make them aware, which is so annoying'cause it's taking up space in your head But that's what I found. I also need to say that I think we're all really lucky, the three of us to have men in our lives that are hands-on fathers. And who are beautiful husbands to us. And who would do anything, for both of your boys, that if you said, Hey, can you go on un onsite, the dishwasher for me, they wouldn't. Sigh or say, well, I've just been at work all day and it's your day off, I think all three of us are really lucky in that sense. So I would absolutely, I guess we can't speak for all women out there. So Skye, I'm interested to hear what you are about to say Okay. It's interesting that you are saying that about even just the grocery stuff. I actually don't do groceries. I can't stand it. I was gonna ask you, Reid,'cause you said that it's always been assumed that you would do this or Miles would do that. I'm curious to know if it was a conversation you guys ever sat down and had in your relationship, or if it's just kind of naturally occurred. But for us it's kind of naturally occurred that Ben. Will handle all the grocery shopping partially that is because on a Friday afternoon, he loves going to like Harris Farm or Super Barn and picking out all the delicious, beautiful. foods and wines because he loves cooking he gets so much enjoyment and that's kind of his way of getting rid of the week out of his head switching off and getting into weekend mode knowing that he's gonna cook all these beautiful meals, which I love that he loves and I love that too. It sounds like love language as well. it totally is. And I love cooking too, and it's very much my love language as well. it's kind of interesting, I haven't thought about this before, but I've kind of taken a step back in some ways. I definitely still cook a lot of nights of the week, but he'll often do all the prep work for it. and we always do sit down and do a meal plan together. Dinner Queen. Yay. But it's actually something that I've Almost not even realized, but have taken a step back from, because I've seen that that's something he enjoys. So I'm happy to do the other things in the household, like do the cleaning. And also I am a bit like Alex and a little bit anal when it comes to cleaning and like it done a certain way. sometimes he'll pick up the mop and clean the bathroom and I'll go in there and be like, oh. But, there's still bits that haven't been done and I know that's my own fault and it's something I need to probably go to therapy for. But was it a conscious decision? Is it a conversation you guys have had of how to split this up? Because we are all working women and we do have multiple children and we are trying to balance all of this do you think that maybe, because when you have children and maybe you have a job change and then you reduce hours and maybe you've been full-time and then part-time, I guess that means that. It should always be an evolving sort of balance. a marriage is a partnership and you need to be keeping that conversation alive of going, okay, like, you know, I now have a baby, or I now work part-time so I can't be doing the things I was doing, I can do more now or I can do less now. it should always be. A topic that households Yeah. Like it can't always be the same. Yeah. And maybe it can, and I guess something that we spoke about when we were talking about this discussion last night was, I thought, well, maybe people outsource things more. Do people utilize cleaners or. I don't know. Cooking thing, like, I don't know what, what people are doing. I would've thought that maybe people now have more cleaners than they did back then 20 years ago. Working so you can potentially afford to pay for a clean or. Kay's probably got good insight on this because she has had like a gardener and a cleaner. And I know you mentioned in one of our previous episodes, that having someone doing the yard work has freed up time for you and Alex to have more family time on weekends. I think, two things on that. Alex is really good at carving out the time that he needs to keep himself sane in amongst work and family. He's really good at going to golf early in the morning so he doesn't miss too much family time. by the time we've had a coffee and chilled out for the morning, he's home. But he's much better at that than I am at taking that time for himself. And in terms of the gardener, yes. I mean, he would spend all weekend poisoning the weeds along the fence line mowing the lawn and fixing something like the chicken coop. we don't have any of that. Now he does have a very big job and sometimes works weekends so it's easy for me to see. my value in this season of life, because he has reduced capacity and wants to spend that spare time as a family. And I have the time more so here than I have before. So, yeah, we're in that loop. I think as well where his career is on the upward trajectory and like you were saying, going from part-time mat leave, part-time having kids. My career has not done so well, But I think That's leading to an interesting point of you have kind of. You run, you're in a different position to me, for example, where I am employed. Whereas you are running a business and that means that you do have to, there's different ways that you manage your day and have to manage your day to get things done. You know, I'm the most flexible. So if anything needs to change or something needs to be done, it's me straight away. And that's No plight on my husband. Like he has zero capacity during the work days most of the time. And I'm happy to take that on, yeah, it's just interesting how that works. Not the way you thought it would. I think it doesn't work sometimes, right? Because we are lucky to be in a situation with our jobs where there is a bit of flexibility. But sometimes that flexibility also comes with not being taken advantage of, but because we are who we are, we'll just jump in and go, oh, I'll just do that. I'll take carriage of that. But sometimes that's not holding space for, you know, if you were at an office job, and you were sitting there, you would probably have to have a conversation with Alex and say, well, who's gonna go and pick the kid up? who's going to do it? Whereas, because you are running on your own time, you naturally feel like, oh, I guess I'll just do it. I think sometimes we'd need to be more conscious of holding our boundaries a little bit more. Shake things up. Shake things up, and Talk to them. Maybe it's hard to talk about sometimes I've found it difficult to navigate this conversation with your spouse and say. I always try and preface it with like, you're amazing. I love you. You're doing a great job, but can I pretty please get you to, you know, it's sort of like I'm not copping you out. You know, it's definitely not a cop out, it's just a, like a SOS. Yeah, like a help or just even, like I said before, just bring it to their attention.'cause otherwise they're probably just thinking about who's gonna win the footy that night and what's for dinner. Like what, or you know, like it sometimes just isn't natural thought to them. And. That's okay. We had this exact situation play out a couple of weekends ago. Alex had been invited to train for an a FL game that was happening in a few weeks, and it was an every weekend training session that. Would start an hour later than suggested. I had two weekends where I just had two kids in the car. shopping here, is a nightmare. running around to six different shops trying to get groceries for the week and getting money out'cause you have to pay for everything in cash while he was at football. And I just came home one afternoon and this is what I'm not good at. I'm not good at asking for what I need sometimes. And I just said, look, I don't say no. Too much, but I'm saying no to football training.'cause you could turn around tomorrow and play this game and it wouldn't be an issue for you'cause you're very fit and capable. And he, straight away he was on the phone and he was like, I won't be there next week. I'll see you at the game. And he dropped it immediately. But hey. Yeah, thanks for both of you for that. Yeah. it works. It was just seamless, it really felt. So it is identifying what you needed and then speaking it, and him being receptive and acting on it straight away. Yeah. Like you would've felt the pressure off very quickly, I imagine after that immediately. Yeah, it was amazing. Yeah, it really was. sometimes I have some, not the same sort of situation, but instances where I'm like, you know. Often it's when the kids are sick and I'm like, okay, so how am I gonna manage?'cause I've got a really big meeting on at this time and you're in your head thinking about how you're gonna manage picking up the child, plus trying to still somehow stay connected to your work. every now and then Ben will be like, I can do it. I'll take the day and do it. it often doesn't occur to me. it has more frequently now because he's great at saying that. in the beginning it often wasn't even a thought to ask him I kind of put on myself, kind of just assumed that I was the one who was gonna need to take the care leave. He, me, he's in a much higher position than me, and I just kind of naturally was like submissive in that sense and thinking, well, it's only fair that I am the one to take the time off, but it's really disruptive for me as a part-time worker. To take any time off because I'm only there three days and I need to smash out as much as I can in that time. thankfully Ben's been like, it's not a conversation that we sat down and had, but it's just something that he's kind of taken charge of and he'll put his hand up and I'm like, oh, thank you. I didn't realize that that's what I needed you to do, but that's actually taken a lot of pressure off me. Yes. Yeah. Or that it was an option. Yeah. I still think you're probably the exception and not the rule in that. even these days, that's pretty amazing teamwork. I know I am very lucky in that sense and it's something that just kind of naturally happens in our relationship, with our teamwork, I think the other way around it is, having those conversations with your partner Just deciding what your boundaries are gonna be and like you're always very good at that. I feel like Ray and going, Nope, I'm not gonna have anything to do with that. That's up to you to manage. I think a healthy relationship, I think we all have really healthy relationships here. communication is key and. Not being afraid to ask your partner for something, I think it's just like having that open and honest conversation with each other about how you can work together as a team to lighten the load. As a family, you don't want one person in the relationship bearing the weight of everything. You know, the admin, the tasks, the chores, All the things. It's not fair. And I guess perhaps that's on us a little bit to say, all right, well maybe if we are doing the same housework as we were 20 years ago and more paid hours, it's like, okay, well maybe we kind of have to take a little bit of responsibility. I'm not saying entirely, but perhaps it's a conversation that we need to have I'm sure lots of partners would be okay to say, yeah, I see where you're coming from. it's an adjustment. It's sort of like baby steps, let's start small. Okay, you're just gonna un the dishwasher every day, or something like that. I dunno. But yeah, I'm trying to speak for other women because not every household will be like us. And yeah, that could be a takeaway for other people to think about. Absolutely. okay, so it is time for weekly recommendations. And why do I have a feeling that we all have the same one this week? Because we probably do Robert. Owen's recent underwear campaign for bonds has sparked a wave of humorous reactions across social media, and I'm getting a real kick out of reading through 26,000 comments from people worldwide seeing their little brother pose on the internet in raunchy undies. He's our little bro. some of my favorites are, I'm endangered and need rescuing. Suddenly identify as a crocodile. This feels so wrong. You are the earth's treasure. We're not supposed to see what's down under. Sky, what are your favorites? okay, so I think it was like the top one. Oh, my son just asked me why the down under song keeps playing over and over on my phone, and then whatever the tariff is, I'll pay it. Just in here checking. Make sure my wife isn't commenting. She definitely did. So good. guaranteed. Like how many WhatsApp chats amongst girlfriends has this come up in? Because I can tell you a lot in mine, I was in stitches on the couch reading this last night. one of my favorites was Robert. I'm trying to be a lesbian over here. and this one is just so simple, but so great. It's a great day to have eyes. I love that one. That is amazing. iconic campaign. We'll go down in history. Also, did you guys see the neighbor poking over the fence when he's doing the sit-ups? I didn't notice it at first, but one of the comments commented on it and I went back and it, that's so good. I'm gonna go back and watch. It's. so good. And everyone being like, how do I get that lady's job for the woman passing him? The weights? Applying for the role of back holder slash supporter. Highlight of their career. also, the Hemsworth, were getting old anyway. Old. That's a good one. Oh my God. Yeah. They have smashed this campaign out of the park. It's actually unbelievable. Yeah, they've done really well and their sales are gonna go up. Big time. Well, thank you. My loves for a fun catch up as always. I thoroughly enjoyed it. thank you everyone for listening. If you enjoyed today's podcast, please. Give us a review, follow us on socials. We love having you and talking to you all the time, and we'll see you next time for another top up with your girls. Bye bye. Bye.