Why Smart Women Podcast
Welcome to the Why Smart Women Podcast, hosted by Annie McCubbin. We explore why women sometimes make the wrong choices and offer insightful guidance for better, informed decisions. Through engaging discussions, interviews, and real-life stories, we empower women to harness their intelligence, question their instincts, and navigate life's complexities with confidence. Join us each week to uncover the secrets of smarter decision-making and celebrate the brilliance of women everywhere.
Why Smart Women Podcast
When Kevin the tortoise and Squeaky the monkey have a chat..
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Episode Introduction
Speaker 1You are listening to the why Smart Women podcast, the podcast that helps smart women work out why we repeatedly make the wrong decisions and how to make better ones. From relationships, career choices, finances, to faux fur, jackets and kale smoothies. Every moment of every day, we're making decisions. Let's make them good ones. I'm your host, annie McCubbin, and, as a woman of a certain age, I've made my own share of really bad decisions. Not my husband, I don't mean him, though I did go through some shockers to find him, and I wish this podcast had been around to save me from myself. This podcast will give you insights into the working of your own brain, which will blow your mind. I acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which I'm recording and you are listening on this day. Always was, always will be Aboriginal land. Well, hello smart women, and welcome back to the why Smart Women podcast. Here I am sitting in my apartment in DY, new South Wales, australia, with David. Hello David.
Speaker 2Good afternoon.
Speaker 1Good afternoon. I tell you I don't want to brag.
Speaker 2I do not want to brag. Are you sure about that?
Speaker 1Yeah, it is ridiculously nice. I've been in the city today doing some coaching and it's this perfect spring sort of warm but not hot weather. It's beautiful.
Speaker 2It's lovely. Why is that bragging?
Speaker 1Well, because there'll be people that are listening to this that are in nasty weather.
Speaker 2Oh yeah.
Speaker 1Glum weather or unpleasant weather or rainy weather.
Speaker 2Sorry about that. Sorry if your weather's not good. Yeah, it is nice here today, I believe in a recent podcast you shared some of your book with people. You know your emerging embryonic book at the moment.
Speaker 1I did, and since then I did do that, I did do that, and since then I have had some regret.
Speaker 2Oh really.
Speaker 1Well, a little bit, because well, for instance, I was talking to my friend Odile yesterday and for anybody who listens regularly, odile Leclasio is the actor who plays the voice, who plays the character of Cat, so she voices her in my other two books. But anyway, I was talking to her yesterday about the book I'm writing about the wild birth, which is where people birth without any medical intervention, knowledge or interference and it's extremely dangerous and mothers and babies keep dying because it comes under the everything natural safe mantle, which is crap, because women died and still do die when they don't have medical support constantly because childbirth is natural but potentially dangerous. Anyway, I was telling Odile and Odile had read that draft, how I've written it that the character is birthing in Lawson in the Blue Mountains in a snowstorm in the middle of winter, and I had it that the room was freezing and she'd been in this unheated birthing pool for three days. And Odile said to me well, why is the room cold?
Speaker 2Someone left the window open.
Speaker 1Because I'd had the windows open. I don't know why I'd written that, but I had and she said why is the room freezing and how are they heating the water? And I said they're not. And I said she said so what? She's sitting in cold water in a freezing room for three days. I said yeah, and she said well, she'd be dead from hypothermia, and that was a good point. So I've had to now go back and rewrite. Right, I had to do a massive rewrite.
Speaker 1There's other things that are wrong with it as well, but the thing about it is that the character, the central character that I'm writing so her sister has decided to have this unmedicalised, unsupported wild birth because she is how.
Speaker 1She has bought into this almost cult-like philosophy that women know how to birth, like animals know how to birth, and it's just doctors just interfere in that process and something goes badly wrong at the end of the birth.
Speaker 1I won't say what, but the doula or the midwife is going to end up in a court case being held accountable for this disaster that happens at the end of this wild birth.
Speaker 1But the character the sister of Harper, who's actually gone through the wild birth and um, but the character the sister of harper, who's actually gone through the wild birth, refuses to acknowledge this is the mother who's been through this disastrous three days of excruciating birthing, and she refuses to acknowledge that the midwife is culpable, when clearly the midwife has encouraged her to go down this route and she has done that. But then Beth, the sister, the lead girl's sister, who's been through this terrible birth, keeps saying well, this is what happened, it was meant to be. The universe has prevailed and tragedy is as valid as triumph. So she holds this reality, which then exonerates um the midwife and herself from any responsibility for this disaster which I will not describe exactly what it is because I don't want to give it away um which, of course, is a massive post-rationalization of a bad decision yeah and, as we know, we make decisions all the time based on the emotional fluxes of our brain, and then we post-rationalize, and don't we david?
Speaker 2yeah, yeah and um, and and, and I'm just sort of thinking about the kind of thought process, the character who has decided to have the wild birth and refuses to accept that the doula is culpable.
Speaker 1And all the way through it, she's refusing to accept that she needed to get help. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2And so, you know, I don't know what it's going to be like, you know, coming from the mouth of a male, but I know that there is this idea which is my body, my life, my decision. You know, my body, my life, my decision. If I elevate that to a certain height, then I'm going to make a bad decision, you know. Possibly, I mean for some people. I mean, you know, you say that women die in childbirth all the time. Well, they do.
Speaker 1Well, they certainly do in third world countries. Okay, yeah, and just walk through a cemetery here and you'll see how many children died of perfectly of diseases that they are now vaccinated against. Except if you're an anti-vaxxer, then you don't. The child recently died of measles. Of course it's just madness.
Speaker 2I tend to think a couple of generations ago, when there wasn't this medical intervention, this wasn't this support, there wasn't the education around it. When there wasn't this medical intervention this wasn't this support, there wasn't the education around it it was more commonplace for families to have a lot of children because they knew that one or two of them were probably going to die 100%.
Speaker 2My father was the first born, the second born. He only found out that there was a second born when he was in his 50s, because what my grandparents did was that their relationship was so close. My grandmother my grandmother on my father's side had that baby. The baby died and no one talked about it and it was just. It was never referred to again. So, yeah, my father had a sibling who died at childbirth and it was just completely swept under the carpet. You know nobody. It was just completely normalized under the carpet. It was just completely normalized. They got on with their life.
Wild Births and Medical Dangers
Speaker 1It's so that period isn't it? When it was like I know I grew up with my parents saying, in some cultures life is cheap, I remember as a child thinking, oh okay, they mustn't care if life is cheap, they mustn't care if a child dies. But it's not the truth. It's just a different way of handling loss and, I guess, and death than now. We acknowledge the pain, we acknowledge the fracture in the family. We acknowledge that it's going to have a kick-on effect to other people in the family.
Speaker 2Look, we now refuse to accept that a woman in childbirth should be subject to the dangers, just the very natural dangers, of the way that homo sapiens reproduce. It's much harder on the women than it is on the men.
Speaker 1Capuchin monkeys, I think, do it really easily. Capuchin monkeys, I think so it's quite good.
Speaker 2Well, there you go, you could have the Capuchin monkeys, I think, do it really easily, capuchin monkeys. I think so it's quite good. Well, there you go, you could have the Capuchin method.
Speaker 1You could have. Yeah, I think they. In fact I'm going to. Yeah, no, I won't look it up, but I know in another chapter of the book I've written about Capuchin monkeys and how they. I don't know I could be making this up 10 minutes or something. It's really quick.
Speaker 2But look, I think what you're saying.
Speaker 1I'd like to be a capuchin monkey.
Speaker 2I can't help you with that, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1If I believed in reincarnation, which I don't believe in it.
Speaker 2You'd be a little monkey.
Speaker 1I wouldn't mind it I wouldn't choose a monkey myself. I wouldn't mind being a little capuchin. They're super cute. They swing around in the jungle making really cute noises at each other.
Speaker 2I think I'd be a Galapagos tortoise.
Speaker 1Is that because you want to live to 100?
Speaker 2Oh no, it's a nice life.
Speaker 1What would your name be? I'd call you.
Speaker 2Kevin, kevin, kevin the turtle.
Speaker 1Don't you reckon what?
Speaker 2would my name be if I was a capuchin?
Speaker 1monkey Annie.
Speaker 2Annie, now, if you're a capuchin monkey, this is the most ridiculous diversion that you've gone down. I know but Okay, if you were a monkey We'd be friends, you know, I would call you. I certainly wouldn't call her Blodwen. Yeah, I would call you. Yeah, what Squeaky.
Speaker 1No, yeah, what Squeaky? No, not squeaky. You'd be very squeaky as a kombucha monkey. I'm sure you would be. You can keep talking while I look up how long it takes them to give birth.
Speaker 2Go on.
Speaker 1Goodness, gracious me, off you go.
Speaker 2I think the point that we're making and you'll correct me, I have no doubt about that if you think I'm wrong is that the current state of affairs when it comes to childbirth is that in first world countries we accept, we embrace the kind of support that women are given when they're going through that incredibly tumultuous For some people easy they have a capucha monkey birth Great, lovely Congratulations. But the fact is that other people have tremendous challenges and you know, without without disclosing too much about the birth of both of our children, there is no way that I think anybody would have survived had there not been some.
Speaker 1You know the medical intervention that you had oh, I would, I would have, yeah, everyone would have done probably both times dreadful, just absolutely dreadful. I'm super, super lucky I was in hospital right, yeah, okay, I'm not lucky. It's because I used my brain and went to a hospital.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, but you were lucky that you had the brain and the culture where you realised that that was your priority. Not everybody, you know. We sometimes look at people who make good decisions and their life, you know, goes in a very good direction because of that and we think, oh yeah, you know, it's a, you know, it's just a function of the good decisions that you've made.
Speaker 1Listen to this.
Speaker 2Oh, you've got your figure now, this is the.
Speaker 1this is gestation periods. It won't give me the actual birth.
Speaker 2Okay, it's giving me gestation periods. How long does it take to grow a monkey in your belly?
Speaker 1No, no, I'm diverting. The whale shark, which is the largest fish in the ocean, has a gestation period. Can you imagine this, especially if you had morning sickness? That can span 3.5 years, but they're swimming.
Speaker 2Okay, they don't have to carry the baby around.
Speaker 1Oh yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2So you know they're like in a permanent float tank.
Speaker 1Oh, that's true. This is for some reason, this is not giving me. I can distinctly remember reading the duration of their pregnancy is five to six months, so that's pretty good. I didn't want to know that.
Speaker 2I would have thought that it wouldn't have been that much shorter to create a capuchin.
Speaker 1Monkey baby in the womb.
Speaker 2I wouldn't have thought that that would have been much shorter than it would take to grow a human being. I mean of course we're bigger. But if you think about those little monkeys when they're born, I think don't they have to immediately be able to grip so that they don't fall.
Speaker 1Human immediately be able to grip a grip so that they don't fall. Human babies are useless. Listen to this. The animal with the shortest pregnancy is the striped-faced dunnett, which is spelt D-U-N-N-A-R-T.
Speaker 2Is it?
Speaker 1a mammal I'm about to tell you. It's a small Australian marsupial with a gestation period of approximately 11 days 11 days. Well, you know, marsupials, I want to come back as a dunnit.
Speaker 2As a dunnit, you know that when marsupials give birth, it's almost like they're giving birth to a little partially formed embryo and then they do the rest of their development in the pouch.
Speaker 1But that's incredible Only 11 days. But listen to this the Virginia. If it's got an O before opossum, is that just possum?
Speaker 2No, that's an opossum. Opossums are different to possums, actually.
Speaker 1The Virginia opossum also has an extremely short pregnancy, lasting only 12 to 13 days. They're both marsupials, meaning the young are born in a highly underdeveloped state and continue to develop in the mother's pouch All right.
Speaker 2Who are you? Bindi Irwin.
Speaker 1I know I don't know what's happened to me. I'm now going when I'm reincarnated.
Speaker 2Oh, you want to be an opossum.
Speaker 1No, I want to be a dunnet.
Speaker 2A dunnet.
Speaker 1A dunnet A. A dunnett, a little australian marsupial, and the one, the animal that has the hardest birth. Oh, is the giraffe, of course, but it's only what. It's only has 30 to 60 minutes of labor. I've gone off the, I've gone, I've lost the plot. Anyway, my point is that we have all this help and people still make terrible decisions that endanger their lives and the lives of their babies, and then they post-rationalise it about something, about freedom and whatever.
Speaker 2Freedom and whatever it's very articulate of you. Thank you, look, and it's not just hearsay or urban myths, we've got a number of anecdotes you know, people that we know.
Speaker 2You know, I remember one chap thought it would be lovely for his partner to give birth in an ocean pool and get this. You know, know. They choose a remote ocean pool. That was, you know, miles and miles away from not only just the nearest hospital but the nearest settlement. So there they are in this you know lovely ocean pool and she's having contractions and all of that. Something went wrong amazing, did it?
Speaker 1how incredible that something can go wrong in the birth process, as it can, as it can go wrong, and the baby died, of course, you know, no, no, of course, and that's terrible yeah and people are vulnerable to these false narratives and these cult-like thinking and this is the point I think some people, sometimes smart women, do make bad decisions or smart people make bad decisions. Smart people make bad decisions.
Speaker 2You know, we have some did you know that that was the title of your first book?
Speaker 1Thank, you yeah, yeah, good, I just wondered whether if you'd understand.
Speaker 2So I think the reality that we're acknowledging is that sometimes smart women make bad decisions, if I could use the title of your book. But you know, some people make bad decisions.
Speaker 1And it's not particularly relevant, is it? I'll just get closer to the mic. And relevant, is it? Oh, let's get closer to the mic. And the people that we know? We have a number of people in our friendship group who have parents, who have and are making poor decisions in relation to their own families, and it's they're not dumb. This is not a lack of intellect, yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, and, and, and, and, so I guess.
Speaker 2Um, I think, I think what we're guess, I think what we were talking about earlier today is that a lot of people of our generation, you know in our 30s, 40s and 50s or so, we are in. I called it the hamburger generation, but you called it the sandwich generation.
Speaker 1It's the sandwich generation. You're dealing with children. Okay, yes, and you're dealing with aging parents, aging parents At the sandwich generation. You're dealing with children, okay, yes, and you're dealing with ageing parents. Ageing parents At the same time. At the same time.
Speaker 2And what I think both of those two groups have in common is that there is a desire for agency. So we all know that. Children, you know they sometimes want to have more responsibility.
Speaker 1Like teenagers Like teenagers.
Speaker 2You know they want to go out, they want to drive. You know they want to. You know, have certain relationships with people and, as a parent, you look at that and you go. Well, hang on a minute, I don't know that you are equipped to make good decisions about. You know what you do, what you eat. You know how you spend your time, what you put into your body.
Speaker 1And we know that there's a lot of risk taking in that cohort in those teenage years because, especially in boys, the prefrontal cortex, so the the part of your brain that is involved in rational thinking, executive function, decision making and risk management, that that part of your brain in males doesn't develop until they're 25. And I would say I know a lot of males where it hasn't developed in them.
Speaker 2Them at all.
Speaker 1They're in their 50s and we're still waiting for that prefrontal, not you, I wasn't meaning you. No, no, no, no, no, no. But we're still waiting for that prefrontal, not you?
Speaker 2What's the meaning of you?
Speaker 1No, no, no, no, no, no, but we're still waiting for that prefrontal cortex to come online.
Speaker 2Okay, so you've just moved from fact. And yes, we do know that there's an evolutionary advantage for young men to be risk-taking.
Speaker 1And what is that? Please extrapolate.
Speaker 2Well, I mean it's because that's how people learn, it's how you find what you're capable of being in the world, in the environment.
Speaker 1Pushing the boundaries. Pushing the boundaries.
Speaker 2And if we think about the role of young men.
Speaker 1And also being attractive to the females right.
Speaker 2Okay, young men in primitive communities. They needed to do things that were a bit risky. They needed to go hunting. They might need to go to war. They needed to go hunting, they might need to go to war. They need to be able to demonstrate that they could protect those that are in their care. So the only way that they get those skills for protection is to put themselves into some danger, learn how to deal with it, and so that kind of rational, more risk-averse, more conservative thinking actually doesn't come online in the male brain until our mid-20s.
Speaker 1Until they're 50.
Speaker 2And the thing is and this is the thing that I think that you've been noticing is that sometimes and you are actually talking a bit more about the males of the species- I am talking about them.
Speaker 1Sorry, I don't mean to be pejorative.
Speaker 2Yep, older men. Here's the construct that there are some older men who are actually not making very good decisions about how they spend their twilight years or their sunset years, or whatever you want to call it. They're not making good decisions about the kind of environment that they live in or the people that they hang out with, or what they do with their acquired wealth.
Post-Rationalization of Bad Decisions
Speaker 1And I think that's right. And if I sort of look around the cohort of my friends, I can think of four examples where the men have either their partner has either died or there has been a divorce and without the steadying hand of the female they have lost the plot yeah, I would say, gone off the rails.
Speaker 2You know, let me describe, I guess, the no names, no pack drill. You know the archetypical. It's almost like the pilgrim's progress, the hero's journey.
Speaker 1But the kind of journey that you are talking about here is that when a man of a certain age finds himself with assets and time on their hands and and let's just remind ourselves that those assets were built up in a union by them and their wife, and the wife has either passed away or the wife they are divorced. But they didn't do it on their own.
Speaker 1Those assets were built either with the support that they could work, because the wife, especially in that generation, stayed at home and reared their children, or else the wife was also working. So the asset that was built up is not theirs alone. And yet there is this sense well, it's mine, I'll do what I like with it which is not right and ethically incorrect right.
Speaker 2Well, you know the Ethically iffy, Ethically iffy, so the spectrum of decisions that one could make in that particular period. Let's imagine that you've left a union, you now are independent, Perhaps you still have a relationship of the offspring of that union. So there's your family, there's your family. You could really focus on them, you could be of service to them, you could enjoy their company, you could get to know them more, you could get to know them as growing adults, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 2But what we do notice, in enough of these circumstances, that we have observed that there is an archetypical story about a man of a certain age. What do you want to call it? Falling in love or getting attached, or being that they are. You know that they can start again with another partner, Generally younger, and generally younger. You know that they can start again. They can have another relationship, they can help that. They can start again. They can have another relationship. They can help another younger woman perhaps, you know, realise her potential. You know, by being the benefactor and we've seen interest in the biological family wane with the new interest in the new relationship- yeah, I think it's right.
Speaker 1There is a waning of interest in the new relationship. Yeah, yeah, I think it's right.
Speaker 1There is a waning of interest in the original family and a sort of uptick of interest in the new family yes um, and it does definitely just in our experience, and of course this is anecdotal, this is not data, but in our experience it is these older men, and I think there's a sense of flattery with it, don't you think that a younger woman is interested in them, and a sense of new and exciting things. You know, the old life was maybe a bit boring, a bit pedestrian, yes, a bit boring a bit pedestrian.
Speaker 1Yes, but the thing about it is that, as, how do people, how does the original family like the children, the adult children that have sort of been left aside, how do they intervene in this process? Because in our experience, what happens is as soon as there is infirmity or an ailment with the, with the older male, the reliance on the original family is reignited. So yeah, and actually I can think of four examples of this where the, the older male, left family, gone to the new one and then, as soon as they get sick, the new family is disinterested because they're older and they need things.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1And then they return into the fold. Yeah, it happened to a friend of mine.
Speaker 2The prodigal dad.
Speaker 1The prodigal dad. It happened to a friend of mine and so he left the family, went to this much, much younger woman who had a small child, moved in with her, or she moved in with him, did all the caring for the child, and then he had a heart condition and my friend was rung by the young woman and said well, I can't look after me, he needs to come to you. Can you, can you take him to an appointment? Can he come and stay with you and um, and then, of course, because it's your, it's in, you know you're genetically attached. Then you're in this awful, invidious position where you're like, well, I haven't seen you for a decade and you've built a new life, but now you need me. What do I do? It's awful.
Speaker 2And you can't turn your back on a parent. You know your mum or your dad, no, and I notice that we're being very cautious to be yeah, to be transparent about the fact is, you know, we haven't looked at the double blind study, we haven't looked at the social research on this. We're going much more off our own experience.
Speaker 1Anecdote by anecdote.
Speaker 2Anecdotal experience which, as we know, is not the whole story, but was it on Netflix that we saw the Four Seasons? Now, the Four Seasons was originally a film made by Alan Alda.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2It's really good Tina Fey, steve Carell fantastic cast. They've done a reboot of the Four Seasons.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2And it was presented as a four-part miniseries and you know no names, not giving away too many spoilers. It's very much about a man who has decided that he wants to have a relationship with a younger woman and the drama that ensues is all about the soundness or otherwise of his decision making, and we could come from this from the perspective that an older man who wants to start a new life with a new woman or a younger woman or a new family, that doing that is necessarily going to be flawed.
Speaker 1I don't believe that to be true. Well, if they have managed to do that, there's conditions on that. You can do what you like. You can go and form a new relationship, absolutely, it's within your rights.
Speaker 2That's right.
Speaker 1That's the value when it's ethically iffy is where you are distancing yourself from your original family, which might include your adult children and your grandchildren, and then um returning to them when you have need, how, after sort of abandoning them. I find that ethically really awful.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, yeah so. So I mean, if you describe it like that, you know I'll only invest in this relationship when I'm getting my needs met. We know that that's not a recipe for a good relationship.
Speaker 1Yeah, terrible.
Speaker 2Yeah, and so look you know I, how do you intervene. Number one how do you intervene?
The Sandwich Generation Dilemma
Speaker 1Okay, number one they look they probably have the men in my circle. I'm sure have convinced themselves that they're perfectly right, because that's what people do. They make an emotional decision like I just want someone young and it'll make me feel young, and then they post-rationalize it with some sort of frame up that they're doing it for some more moral reason.
Speaker 1But, really, I think they just like the idea of being with someone younger, and that in itself is not bad. Depends what you do with that, but how. What do we do? Because if someone's acting irrationally, how do you impact on that? Because god knows, there's plenty of it. Yeah, yeah, okay I mean so?
Speaker 2I mean the, and this is the, this is the, the root challenge of anybody who is interested in critical thinking and supporting other people to make decisions that are good, decisions that are in their own best interests or in the best interests of the family or the community that is going to be supporting them later on in their life. So I mean, you know, sorry to, sorry to get all biblical about it, but in situations, you have gone super biblical lately.
Speaker 1Can I just say that. You also did some post with Jesus, or something on the Mount?
Speaker 2No, it wasn't on the Mount. It was Jesus going into the synagogue and turning out the money changes and the merchants.
Speaker 1So what's with all the biblical?
Speaker 2references and the pigeon sellers you really want to know.
Speaker 1No, not really. I don't really like it.
Speaker 2Well, hang on a second. What you don't like it.
Speaker 1Not really.
Speaker 2Do you want me to give it to you in a nutshell? Yeah, yeah, okay. So, coming from a Christian background, I've been trying to make sense of what I think works about that religion from a humanistic point of view, and I've come down to the three instrumental words faith, hope and love.
Speaker 2And the greatest of these is love. I think it was Matthew 13 or something like that, and it suddenly occurs to me that those three words are probably really good self-instructions for life. So if you have faith, it's not about having to believe in something, but if you have faith, everything's okay. You know everything's going to be all right, but everything's not okay.
Speaker 1Well, no, everything's okay. You know everything's going to be all right, but everything's not okay. Well, no, everything's no, everything's not okay. Why is everything okay If you, you know, if you've just you know you're living over there in Gaza and you've just had your home destroyed, how is everything okay?
Speaker 2No, no, no, no, that's not what I'm saying. I'm not talking about.
Speaker 1The environment is okay, okay but if you take the specifics of of relationships.
Speaker 2Are you sure you want to go here?
Speaker 1no, not really, because it might irritate me. Also can I just say one thing is that if I die, yeah or for whatever reason, um if, if, if you divorce me yeah right, let's just say what you're talking about us, us going our separate ways.
Speaker 2yeah, yeah, I'm having Ryder. I don't want, I'm keeping Ryder. You're saying you don't want Yo-Yo, I do want Yo-Yo, I'll have both the dogs.
Speaker 1I do want. Oh, look at her. You hurt her feelings.
Speaker 2No, you hurt her feelings. You were the one who was rejecting her. Well, you just said I want Ryder and Yo-Yo as well. No, and I want to have a functional relationship with the children.
Speaker 1If you had actually really wanted Yo-Yo, you would have said I want both the dogs, but you gave yourself away, and that is some applied rhetoric right there, I thought nominating Ryder was funnier. Anyway, if I die or something else, bad happens what would I do?
Speaker 2well, how would faith, hope and love help me in that situation?
Speaker 1please stop talking about faith, hope and love. It's going to drive me mental um what you well you if you find somebody 30 years younger yeah and then go and I don live in. I don't know where would you go? Go and live in Wagga.
Speaker 2Wagga.
Speaker 1No, Nimbin, Go up if you go up north and turn into some sort of anti-vaxxer no, no, no, no and start selling organic vegetables with the girl.
Speaker 2And if it was a lovely 30-year-old, the first thing that I would do, the first present that I would give her, was your books, and I'd ask her to read them. You know why smart women make bad decisions, why smart women buy the lies. And then I would ask her so what did you think of those books?
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2And depending on her response.
Speaker 1And she'd say is this from your dead wife? Yeah, this is my dead wife's books. Yeah, yeah, you think I'd get a second date.
Speaker 2I want you to read my dead wife's books and tell me what you think of them.
Speaker 1Well, I think that this girl's name is Freya.
Speaker 2Freya. I like the name Freya.
Speaker 1No, no, no, Her name is Fern.
Speaker 2No, I like Freya. No, we're going for Fern Fern.
Speaker 1If you end up up in, where are you going to be? Byron Bay.
Speaker 2Nimbin.
Speaker 1Nimbin with Fern.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1Now, I don't even believe in the afterlife, but I will come back and I will haunt you and make your life a misery.
Speaker 2Why, that's not a very loving thing to do. To make my life a misery. I would though. Okay, fine, look, I accept that. So I'll leave you our address in nimbin, that's where we will be.
Speaker 1We'll be nimba, we won't be anywhere else?
Speaker 2and what about the dogs?
Speaker 1the dogs, yo-yo yeah, they're coming with me, even yo-yo, yeah, yeah you know I'm fond of yo-yo.
Speaker 2I wouldn't leave yo-yo to someone cruel like you.
Speaker 1I'm I'm not what, oh, this is if we divorce? Yeah, oh, I see, yeah, I see yeah yeah, I mean.
Speaker 2you know, somebody who does not have faith, hope and love in her heart cannot possibly look after that dog.
Speaker 1Anyway, but back to. I'm still alive, so we don't have to worry about that currently. How do you intervene in these situations where someone in your life is making decisions that are to their detriment and to the detriment of others? How do you intervene?
Speaker 2you have to take the speck of dust from your own eye before you can stop being biblical okay um, you have to look at your own thinking first. You've got to look at your own critical thinking first yeah, well, I've done that.
Speaker 1What next?
Speaker 2and be methodical and accountable for your application of critical thinking to that situation. Oh my god well.
Speaker 1That's a whole lot of gobbledygook, it's not.
Speaker 2It is.
Speaker 1You said absolutely nothing then. You just liked the sound of yourself saying things.
Speaker 2No, that's not true. No, look, I'll talk to you about how I would apply it. But you see, the thing is, this is what I find with you sometimes, annie. When I talk about the methodical application of the critical thinking skills that you are teaching, you go yeah, yeah, yeah, right, whatever, you're boring me now.
Speaker 1Well, I started it. Yeah, I know, you did start it. I started the whole critical thinking thing, so you can't now usurp me.
Speaker 2I'm not usurping you. I'm not usurping you. I'm just saying you've identified really constructive things to do so that you don't create drama. That's enough. Kevin, what? Kevin the tortoise? Yes, no, okay, so I think, what I would recommend with somebody trying to.
Speaker 1Okay, let's just say I'm being intractable. If you're being intractable and I've made terrible decisions, go on, have a shot.
Speaker 2Have a.
Speaker 1And I'm intractable stubborn and yeah, okay, Go on.
Speaker 2And I'm intractable, stubborn and gone, yeah, okay, gone, oh well. I'd ask you know what's going on at the moment that makes you think that this is the right decision for you to make?
Speaker 1Well, I don't know. Help me understand what's going on here. I've made my own decisions and I don't have to answer to anybody.
Speaker 2Yeah, absolutely. You know that's true. And tell me about not having to answer to anybody. I mean, that just means what?
Speaker 1Well, I don't have to justify my decision-making to you or anybody. This is a conversation that one of the men had with one of my friends.
Speaker 2Yeah, can I tell you about my concern?
Speaker 1Oh Okay, now that is a good point. You have actually made a good point, david oh, have I yeah, because you've you've dropped status, so you're not being inflammatory and you've said can I tell you what?
Speaker 2that's what I'm concerned about oh, are you concerned?
Speaker 1I am okay, what are you concerned about?
Speaker 2okay, oh goodness gracious me, I would pick something specific in terms of you know what might be happening in the future. You know, I know that. You know, I know that. Um, you know, currently you've got this condition under control. Yeah, so it could be a uh, a physical condition. Let's say it's a heart condition. Okay, you know, you've got your heart condition under control.
Speaker 1Well, I don't actually I've got to have a few stents, a couple of stents put in.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, okay, can I stay with you? Look, absolutely.
Speaker 1Can I, of course? Oh, really, that's nice. I just need tea and toast in the morning and the newspaper brought to me that I'm good yeah happy to provide. That went well.
Speaker 2I don't know. Yes, I guess so.
Speaker 1Well, my friend said no.
Speaker 2Oh, what did your friend say?
Speaker 1Your friend said no, I want to be on my own. No, no, no. She just said I can't, we don't have capacity to have you here. We're up and gone at five o'clock in the morning. We've got stairs in the house. What are we going to do?
Older Men and Their Life Choices
Speaker 2Oh right, Okay, so. So if I can't provide tea and toast in the morning, what is this the kind of conversation where I'm going to be saying listen, if you're out, you're out on your own, you can't come back here and we're not going to be able to look after you?
Speaker 1Is that what you're saying? Well, she just sort of had to say look, I wish we could have you, but unfortunately we're not set up to have you.
Speaker 2Right, right, right. Well, so you're talking about a different situation.
Speaker 1Oh, ok, I'm an older male and about to make a bad decision.
Speaker 2Okay, and so the first thing that I'll ask is okay, so you know what's happening at the moment. You know what are you hoping for, what's ideal for you, what are you moving towards?
Speaker 1Well, I just like to take it one day at a time.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1Okay. I don't like to plan too much in the future.
Speaker 2Right, yeah, Can I tell me? Can I tell you what my concerns?
Speaker 1Okay.
Speaker 2I don't know what the future is going to hold when you're actually going to need a bit more support than you currently need at the moment. Like we know that you've got a heart condition, something physical, or we know that this is your financial situation, or we know that you like to do this particular activity and you want to be able to continue doing that activity, my concern is that if you go in this direction, in this way, 100%, if you're all in, then it's certainly going to get in the way of us being there to help you when you need our help.
Speaker 1I probably won't need your help.
Speaker 2Okay, tell me about that.
Speaker 1Let's explore that.
Speaker 2What are you thinking? Are you saying how is this going to work? Because I can tell you.
Speaker 1Well, I've always been pretty independent.
Speaker 2Yeah, of course you have.
Speaker 1I mean, I'm 82 now.
Speaker 2Yes indeed.
Speaker 1But I'm doing pretty well.
Speaker 2How long do you think your independence is going to continue, for you know your physical independence.
Speaker 1Oh well, apart from the heart issue, I don't know I just want to take it a day at a time. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2When we get into those days when you actually need continuous help. You know, do I need to spell it out? You know you're this age at the moment. In 15 years' time, 10 years' time, you know, will you still be able to do. You still truly believe that you'll be able to live day by day in 15 years' time, independently?
Speaker 1Yeah, probably not. I guess the intelligence behind that line of questioning is you're not saying you're wrong, you're not looking at the future, you're not taking care of yourself at the future, you're not taking care of yourself. What you're doing is asking the person who's in current denial to have some curiosity about their own future, and I think that's all we can ever do, isn't it? Really is to try and get them to come to the conclusion themselves, rather than saying you're being an idiot.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1What are you thinking? Eight years' time you're going to be screwed. There's no point because, then they get defensive, but by saying, well, what do you see in the future, how do you see this playing out?
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1Where would you be living? Because we live here. Now. How would we get to you which makes their brains, I guess, get into the problem-solving part of their brain right, which gets them out of that emotional brain where they just want to go la, la, la, la, la. I'm happy, I like it, yeah.
Speaker 2That is the ideal. One of the things that I know about all of our professional development work and all of the work that we do in terms of coaching and therapy is that I think we're doing a good job when we give people a greater sense of their own agency.
Speaker 1Absolutely.
Speaker 2Their own sense of being able to make decisions that are going to impact in positive ways on the things that they care about, be it their own future or the future of their family. Now, the things that we can't control is the things that they care about, be it their own future or the future of their family. Now, the things that we can't control is the things that they care about.
Speaker 2So if we give someone a wholesale license or wholesale agency to do whatever it is that they want and they are not equipped to make a good decision, then that's probably not a good choice. It's certainly not a good parenting choice.
Speaker 1Like with the teenager where you go. Yeah, take my car.
Speaker 2Take my car and, you know, take a bottle of vodka as well because, then you'll be able to smuggle it into the party and get all your friends drunk. You know who wouldn't want to do that as a 16-year-old boy. So there are times when we are parenting, when we have to go. No, I don't think you're equipped to make this particular decision. I think what gets really tricky is when we have to have a similar kind of conversation with um a parent, if you like you know, or one of our elders and you you only again you can look at dramatic art.
Speaker 2We were talking about the Four Seasons and in the Four Seasons the friends and the family really have to wrestle with whether the guy who has decided to have the relationship with the younger woman.
Speaker 1After leaving his wife.
Speaker 2Yeah, after leaving his wife, you know, was this a good decision? Was he using his faculties? Well, we can look at a play like King Lear. Sorry to get all classical on you.
Speaker 1I'm fine with the classics. I like the classics. I'm just a bit sick of the biblical stuff.
Speaker 2Okay yes, it's such a small contributor to the life that we lead at the moment. So, if I go to a play like King Lear, king Lear is all about an older male who has a thought in his head which is unrealistic and he won't be persuaded that the way that he is seeing things is suboptimal. He can't see and actually gets aggressive when he defends his right to fundamentally just behave badly in front of his children and the rest of the kingdom.
Speaker 1so, yeah, there is a challenge that I think well, being defensive is is um is a very natural response.
Speaker 2Nobody, nobody wants to be criticized nobody wants to have their their agency taken away from them or their or their identity punctured yeah, yeah nobody wants that yeah so being defensive is a very, very natural and human response.
Speaker 1It's just incredibly unhelpful and difficult to deal with.
Speaker 2The vexed moment is when you are dealing with, I think, anybody who is a grown adult. You know it could be a parent, it could be an aunt, um, could be a friend, uh, could be a colleague, when they are of the age where you would expect them to have good critical thinking and making good decisions about their future. When they just don't and you then have to say, no, this is no longer your decision.
Speaker 1Very tricky. It is very tricky and very salient. Well, on that note, Kevin, did you name me my capuchin?
Speaker 2Yeah, Squeaky.
Speaker 1I want to be Squeaky.
Speaker 2I want to be. You're not going to be a capuchin. I'd hate to disappoint you.
Speaker 1Oh, I'm going to think of a name for myself and come up with it. Anyway, thanks for listening. Smart women Look, all of us have people in our lives who are difficult, difficult situations where we're trying our best to navigate our way through these dynamics of these interpersonal relationships. And I've got to say it's really hard, really hard. But to adopt some of these practices, to try not to get too emotionally aroused by the situation, to try not to bring too much emotion into an already vexed situation which just then inflames things, but to come at it to the best of your ability, from a place of critical analysis of the way you think and then try and get the person that you're talking to to be a bit curious about the way they are seeing their situation, is all we can offer at this point. But I just want to say, if anybody is going through any of this with a family member, it's really tough and I feel for you.
Speaker 2Sounds like faith and hope to me what you just said.
Speaker 1Oh my gosh. So thanks for listening. Wherever you are in the world, stay safe, stay well, keep your critical thinking hats on. See you later. Bye.
Speaker 1Thanks for tuning in to why smart women with me, annie mccubbin. I hope today's episode has ignited your curiosity and left you feeling inspired by my anti-motivational style. Join me next time as we continue to unravel the fascinating layers of our brains and develop ways to sort out the fact from the fiction and the over 6,000 thoughts we have in the course of every day. Remember, intelligence isn't enough. You can be as smart as paint, but it's not just about what you know, it's about how you think. And in all this talk of whether or not you can trust your gut, if you ever feel unsafe, whether it's in the street, at work, in a car park, in a bar or in your own home, please, please respect that gut feeling. Staying safe needs to be our primary objective. We can build better lives, but we have to stay safe to do that. And don't forget to subscribe, rate and review the podcast and share it with your fellow smart women and allies. Together, we're hopefully reshaping the narrative around women and making better decisions. So until next time, stay sharp, stay savvy and keep your critical thinking hat shiny. This is Annie McCubbin signing off from why Smart Women? See you later.
Speaker 1This episode was produced by Harrison Hess. It was executive produced and written by me, annie McCubbin.
