This Week in America — My Daughter Thinks My Hair Is Ruining My Career

In this episode of This Week in America, I talk about the unexpected ways living in Tennessee has changed what feels familiar to me. I used to miss the loud chaos of Australian birds every morning—lorikeets, magpies, cockatoos—but lately the sounds of cardinals, blue jays, and woodpeckers have started feeling like home too.

That leads into a bigger conversation about life as an Australian living in America, how your sense of home slowly changes over time, and why emotional connections can form in places you never expected. I also share stories from our backyard wildlife drama involving moles, voles, and a very determined cat who has apparently appointed himself head of security.

We also wander down to the Florida Gulf Coast, talking about why places like Destin, 30A, and Panama City Beach have become some of my favorite places in America, even though I grew up surrounded by Australian beaches.

And then, just when the episode gets reflective, my seven-year-old daughter delivers the most brutal career feedback I’ve ever received: apparently my hair is the reason I don’t have a YouTube play button yet. What follows is an unexpectedly sweet moment about parenting, creativity, and the ordinary memories that eventually become the ones we miss most.

Topics in this episode:

- Australian vs American birds and wildlife

- Life in Tennessee as an Australian expat

- Florida Panhandle travel and Gulf Coast culture

- How living overseas changes your identity

- Parenting, creativity, and everyday family moments

- The unexpected influence of a seven-year-old hair consultant

If you enjoy stories about Australia vs America, expat life, Southern culture, family life, and finding home in unexpected places, this episode is for you.

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Thanks for listening. Hoo roo maties.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

There's something I've noticed lately living here in Tennessee during the warmer months. For years now, I've spoken about how much I miss Australian wildlife, particularly the sounds. I don't think Australians realize how much noise our birds make until you actually leave. You better take cover. You grow up hearing lorrike screaming at sunrise and magpies carrying on like they own the joint. Cockatoos sounding like old screen doors being torn off hinges. Australia sounds loud. Wild. Ancient almost. Even now, if I hear a magpie wobble online somewhere, it instantly does something to me emotionally. It's strange how quickly sound bypasses logic. You're suddenly not sitting in Tennessee anymore. You're back somewhere else, entirely, just for a few seconds. When I first moved to America, I remember noticing the silence more than anything. I guess it wasn't literal silence, but just a different type of silence. The birds here sounded softer to me, maybe more layered or more hidden inside the trees. In Australia, birds often sound like they're announcing themselves to the entire suburb. American birds feel quieter somehow, more tucked into the environment. At first, I honestly missed the chaos of Australian mornings. But lately, with spring and now summer arriving in Tennessee, the backyard has started feeling alive again in its own kind of way. The trees behind the house are filled out enough now that you can barely see parts of the neighborhood through them. Everything's green again, there's warm air coming through the windows, and every morning there's this soundtrack outside now of cardinals, blue jays, woodpeckers, and birds I still wouldn't have a clue what they're called. And somewhere along the way, without really noticing it happen, these sounds started feeling comforting too. I think that's one of the strange things about living overseas long enough. At first you compare everything, then eventually your brain slowly starts building new versions of home without asking permission first. That's the part nobody really explains when you move countries. You assume you'll either fully belong somewhere or you won't. But what actually happens is far messier than that. Because pieces of your old life stay with you forever while new emotional anchors quietly form around you over time. One day you suddenly realize the sound of Tennessee birds now means something to you as well. And honestly, our backyard has become one of those places for me. Which is kind of funny, because at the exact same time, our cat has apparently declared war on the local vole population. Every single morning lately, there's another gift sitting at the back door. Sometimes two. One morning I think there were three out there. I've never seen anything like it. This cat has gone from a sleepy house pet to a tiny suburban assassin almost overnight. And I think he's pretty proud of himself too. That's the funniest part. He walks around afterwards like he's personally protecting the family from collapse. And meanwhile, I'm standing there thinking, yeah, well, apparently this is my life now, cleaning up after you. And then on top of that, moles have decided to destroy the front lawn from underneath. You walk across the grass now and half of it feels hollow. So I guess at the moment our house basically feels like a nature documentary. Birds singing beautifully in the trees, woodpeckers tapping away in the distance, moles tunneling under the yard like it's a prison break, and our cat patrolling the property like he's defending the kingdom. You know, when you grow up in Australia, people overseas always imagine the wildlife there is terrifying. You hear about the snakes, the spiders and the sharks, little crocodiles, you know, everything trying to kill you. But suburban America has its own weird little wildlife ecosystem too, once you actually start paying attention. Raccoons, squirrels, vultures, coyotes not too far away, moles destroying the lawns and deer everywhere. And apparently now one extremely motivated cat. Another thing that happens around this time of year in Tennessee is everyone starts talking about heading south. And you can feel it socially before you even see it online. People talking about beach trips and condos and traffic heading down through Alabama. Who's going to destin? Panama City Beach or 30A. In honestly, I get it. We've made the trip down to the Florida Panhandle a few times since living here, and I absolutely love it down there. There's something about that part of the country that just settles me. And I don't even fully know how to explain it. Maybe it's because it reminds me a little of Australia while still feeling completely American at the same time. White sand beaches, really warm Gulf water, seafood places right near the water. It has a slower pace and that mix of southern culture and beach life all rolled together. There's also something very comforting about how people in Tennessee talk about the Gulf Coast. It feels woven into life here. And once the weather warms up, everyone instinctively starts thinking about getting near the water. Now we have lakes here in Nashville, but nothing quite beats those Gulf Coast beaches. It's one of the few places where I genuinely feel my whole nervous system exhale. The second you arrive, something in me just settles. Which is strange in a way, because I grew up in Australia on the south coast of New South Wales, surrounded by beaches. And you'd think that moving to America, the places that would emotionally affect me most would be New York City or Los Angeles or somewhere iconic like that. Instead, somehow this stretch of the Gulf Coast quietly became one of my happy places. Maybe that's another thing, living overseas changes. Is your emotional map of the world starts becoming disconnected from the map that you originally grew up with? Places that you never expected start mattering deeply to you. Because the reality of living there full time is completely different. The insurance costs alone are brutal because of the frequent hurricanes. Housing prices keep climbing, storm seasons are pretty intense, and every beautiful place tends to ask for something in return eventually. So it sits in that strange category of places that you deeply love while also understanding why living there permanently could be pretty complicated. It'll take a lot of buy me a coffee donations to make that dream a reality. Maybe in some way that's adulthood as well, loving places while also understanding what reality is. Then today, in the middle of all of this very reflective thinking about birds and beaches and identity and wildlife, Brianna decided to absolutely destroy me. She was watching one of my latest YouTube videos and suddenly says, Dad, you need to do your hair better. It looks like a toothbrush. No hesitation, no concern for my feelings whatsoever. Then she follows it up with, This is why you don't have a play button yet. So apparently, after years of trying to understand YouTube, analytics, thumbnails, retention graphs, and audience psychology, the actual issue this whole time has simply been my hair. Honestly, if she starts a consulting business for creators, she might actually do pretty well. So naturally she decided to fix the problem herself. Next thing I know, she's got the spray bottle out, the brush, water, everything. She took it very seriously, too. Checking the angles, looking from the side, adjusting bits at the front. At one point she stepped backwards, squinted at me like a professional evaluating a client. It honestly looked like I was backstage before a television interview. And the thing that hit me afterwards was how quickly kids start becoming part of your routines, really without you even noticing. Because now apparently, before I record videos, I have a stylist. And she's seven years old. What's nice is she's also been saying for a while now that she wants to become a hairdresser when she grows up. So while she's brushing my hair and trying to fix my toothbrush head, you can almost see her little brain working creatively the whole time. And those moments, I think they really hit you differently as a parent. Because one day these things that feel completely ordinary right now will probably become the memories that I really miss. Not the big milestones, just those warm afternoons with the birds outside, green backyards, beach trips to Florida, and my daughter standing there very seriously trying to help me get my hair right before recording another video. Living overseas has taught me something I never really expected. Home isn't always one place anymore. Sometimes it's the sounds or the weather or the backyard in Tennessee in summer. Sometimes it's the Gulf Coast, like hearing birds that once sounded foreign, suddenly becoming familiar. And sometimes it's a seven-year-old telling you your hair is the reason your career hasn't taken off yet. Honestly.