Suzie: Welcome to sharing my truth with Mel and Suzie, the uncensored version where we bear it all.

Mel: We do 1234, right. Hello.

Suzie: Hello, babes, babes, babes, how are you? We are back at showing my truth pod and you're here with Mel and Susie. And we're so excited to be here. And here's a quick little friendly reminder to rate, review and subscribe to this podcast because we love you and we appreciate all the support so far. And we just love this little community we've built with all you crazy little people who just want to share your truths with us. You can go to our website sharingmytruth.com, and you can look at us on Instagram @sharingmytruthpod. Send us a dm. Send us your truth. We want to know. Hey, babes.

Mel: Hello, darling.

Suzie: How are you?

Mel: I'm fabulous.

Suzie: It's kind of fun to be here right now. It's getting a little warmer weather in.

Mel: It's getting a little sexier. Really? Yeah. Wow.

Suzie: You feel it in the air. It's a little bit of a, I don't know, feral.

Mel: Yeah, you can feel it. People are sniffing each other. Yes.

Suzie: It's like the spring lambs are coming in soon.

Mel: Well, I think it's because people are very hibernate, especially in Canada or in the parts of the states where it snows and stuff. People get really hibernate, which I find really od because I don't think, like, in the UK, we're not really like that because the weather's always ****, so we don't. The weather's always ****. Yeah, it's always so. But it has been quite nice here, to be fair. We've had a pretty easy winter.

Suzie: No, we have. It's actually been amazing. Like, we're in the pluses. I know, and it's amazing. And I just want to take my top off, you know what I mean?

Mel: Wow.

Suzie: Celebrate.

Mel: Wow. Okay, fair enough.

Suzie: And I was watching this week because it was actually colder this week, but I just stayed in and watched love is blind. Have you seen it?

Mel: I haven't. I've heard a lot about it, obviously.

Suzie: Okay, so it's for a quick recap on, because obviously you don't watch it because you're smart and you have a life. So love is blind is when the women and men, they don't look at each other, they don't see each other. They literally talk through a wall the whole time. The entire time that they're dating, it's called. So they are dating all these ******* people trying to figure out who they like, and then you're talking through a wall, and then you're supposed to get to that point where the man is going to propose to someone he's never seen because you guys fall in love. Well, literally within a week. It's the most unrealistic ******* thing you've ever seen in your life.

Mel: Right?

Suzie: And this dating is so cringey, and it's so awful. And these people are so desperate. The desperation of a lot of these people, not all of them, some of them are. Seem kind of normal, but some of them, I'm just like, oh, my God.

Mel: The women or the men? It's weird.

Suzie: The women are definitely more desperate. And a lot of the time, the women are actually older than the men. So it's weird. It's like the men are like, I'm ready to find love. And then. Yeah, it's so ridiculous. So then they get engaged in the pods. Let's say it's called the pods, because you're in this little enclosed area, and then you go out and you go on this weird little honeymoon that they put up for you. See if you can kind of survive that with each other by now. You see each other and you possibly have sex and things like that, which is kind of ridiculous. And then you go out and then they put you up and you live together for however many weeks. And then if you survive that, then you actually get married, whether you say yes or no at the end of the aisle or not.

Mel: But what happens if you really got along? Then you see each other and you're like, well, that's possible. None of these.

Suzie: I've never seen a super ugly person on the show.

Mel: Well, probably not.

Suzie: Obviously not.

Mel: I don't think.

Suzie: But it is very possible that you're not going to be attracted to this person at the end of the day. And I don't believe that love is blind at the end of the day. I need to be like, you need to be with someone who makes your.

Mel: Nick is wet, if you will. Very good.

Suzie: Thank you.

Mel: Wow. Susie. Well, to me, I haven't seen it. I have seen clips of it on social and stuff, and I know everyone's obsessed with it. Love can be blind, but not to the physicality, to the red flags that you do in your personality. It's like they got it the wrong way around. Yeah. Doesn't make any sense.

Suzie: It's really crazy. And so you just watch these, and it's typically like the men when they finally see each other. Right. It's like, the men who kind of gets uninterested right away. You can see it in their faces. They're like, I don't want to ******* date this girl anymore because of the way she looks or she's just kind of a little crazier than he kind of suspected. But also, the men are so immature and they're so annoying. And there's some of them on this season where there's a guy who literally was so concerned because the girl that he is ending up with, she isn't on birth control. And he was like, well, how are we going to have sex? And everyone else is like, have you heard of a condom? What is going on?

Mel: Wow. So very selfish in a way. Like, almost, oh, my God, it's going backwards. It's oD, obviously. I guess most of these people want to be influencers or personalities or whatever it is, but why in God's name you want to meet somebody like that?

Suzie: I don't know. And then the girls are like, well, I've always like, men just look at.

Mel: Me and then they want me.

Suzie: They don't really want get to know me. Or like, the guys are like, they're jacked or they're kind of dumb. And they're like, girls never really wanted to get to know my personality. I'm like, shut the **** up.

Mel: Wow.

Suzie: Anyways, I'm obsessed with the season because there's so much drama and apparently so many of the guys who are, like, some of the main guys now, this is, like, kind of a side note. A lot of the main guys, it's been coming out that a lot of them just had previous girlfriends, like, two months before they went on the show. So are they really looking to get into a relationship? One of the guys had a ******* girlfriend and he was, like, talking to her while he was on the show, being like, I obviously not going to say yes at the altar, but it's just like, obviously this is going to happen in this reality show. But the fact that people are going on this with intentions to actually get married at the end, that's what they're mad. That's what's crazy.

Mel: Have any of them actually got married?

Suzie: Yeah, some of them. A lot. Like, there's always, like, at least one or two that actually say yes and they're still together. But it's crazy to me. I would never be able to do that. But those are just like, one. Like, they actually were like a match anyways. They would have probably right?

Mel: You know what I mean? Yeah.

Suzie: And they're not like, none of them are ugly.

Mel: Well, no, actually, it probably would make.

Suzie: That would make for good tv. I would love to see so many of them. Some of them be ugly and some of them not be. Oh, my God, it'd be so funny to me. Yeah, that's real tv right there.

Mel: Yeah. It doesn't sound like my test to tay.

Suzie: Susie, I really like you to watch it.

Mel: I might give it a. See if I can manage so bad. It sounds horrendous.

Suzie: It's horrible.

Mel: It sounds horrendous because, I mean, finding somebody that you want to marry is very hard, and then actually staying married, it's like, why you'd want to do it that way. But maybe it is hard. So maybe, I don't know. They've tried everything else. I doubt they have because they're probably quite. How young are they in their 30s?

Suzie: Some of the guys are, like, 24.

Mel: Please.

Suzie: Oh, my God. Right? Like, you've barely dated anyone. Are you insane? Yeah, it's crazy to me. Some of the girls are like, 30 ish, and then they're dating that younger guy, and then they're like, age doesn't matter. But I'm like, obviously it does, because you're going to want to have kids right away.

Mel: Right? Exactly.

Suzie: They might not because they're 24 years old.

Mel: But it seems interesting. Sort of leads into our subject, doesn't it, that there seems to be almost this overcomplication in. I guess those. They be Gen Z, aren't they, on the show Gen Z.

Suzie: It's like, Gen Z. Millennials, young millennials.

Mel: That, like, overcomplication of this thing called dating. It's not rocket science. You meet somebody in a myriad of different places, you like them, you don't like them, you stay with them, you don't. You get married, you don't. It's not complicated. I mean, I know it's not easy to meet people. And I think compared to when I was young, people are at home more.

Suzie: Yes.

Mel: They don't go out as much. I mean, I was talking about this with somebody the other day, basically from the age of 14 to the age of 24. I don't think it was a single Friday or Saturday night that I was in. I was out partying. I was like, with my friends.

Suzie: You're party girl.

Mel: Yeah, but we didn't have Netflix. We couldn't do Netflix and show or.

Suzie: Like, Instagram and scrolling your life away.

Mel: Yeah, you couldn't do any of that, so you had to be out. Otherwise, what were we going to do, stare at the wall. And there was nothing on tv. I mean, in England we only had four channels. What was I going to do? But I think it's not just like shows like that. There's this other thing that we've been seeing a lot, like things like this. Like this influencer trend. Is it a trend called trad wife? I think there's Trad wife and trad girlfriend.

Suzie: So weird.

Mel: And it's become this huge influencer thing on Instagram and TikTok and wherever platforms.

Suzie: Well, because they're not doing anything else. They're cleaning, they're cooking these ridiculously amazing what it looks like meals and they.

Mel: Get to just film it and they're.

Suzie: Making money off of this.

Mel: Well, yeah, so there's that. So the thing is, what's the difference between a trad wife and a stay.

Suzie: At home mum and just a regular housewife?

Mel: Yeah, and I think the tradwife one thing, apparently, according to what I read, doesn't have to have children, okay? So she could actually just be a wife. But I think there's another level of weirdness because all power to you if you're with somebody, and let's assume you're in a situation where you've got children and you've made an agreement as a couple, you're going to stay at home because looking after kids, if you do it, I hate to say the word properly because people have come after me, but you make your kids lunch, you take them to school, you pick them up, you take them back to. It's a lot, right? You don't farm out any activity, you don't have any kind of help. It's a lot. And the husband makes enough money, which is very unusual in this day and age, that a man can make enough money to support you to live in a decent.

Suzie: Unless you live in one of these smaller communities, you don't need that much money, right?

Mel: But in Canada and the UK, it's pretty unusual. And if you're lucky enough to be in that situation and you have the presence of mind that you're like, I'm happy with this, and **** what everyone else says because people are so ******* judgmental. Because if you have two, three, four kids, it's a lot to be working as well and looking after those kids all the time. I don't care what I've always worked, but it's a huge thing and it's very, very difficult. There's a point where something has to give. I mean, let's be realistic. If you have a full time job, corporate job where you're working and you've got a high powered position. You're working from, let's say, eight to eight. Well, the thing that's got to give is the time with your kids. There's something that has to give. And if you're a stay at home mum, you're giving up your career because you're spending the. And that. The point of feminism is you're making that choice. But the trad wife thing seems to have gone like an extra thing. Like they're going back in time. I see all these images of these women. It's a bit weird to me, dressed in 1950s sort of pennies and dresses. And then there's a lot of stuff. Like, there's this girl is really well known on TikTok. I can't think where her name is. She married somebody famous. But, like, her kids will say, I'd like grilled cheese for lunch. And, like, normal person would get two pieces of bread. They're thankful the kid is eating anything. They get the two phrases, shove the cheese in. The kid's going to go to the veggies. You try and put a few carrots on the side. You try for an apple or something. You try for something, but you're not going to spend more than 20 minutes doing that. Yeah, these women are like, oh, sure, honey. And then they get out, and then they're making the bread. They're practically making this one woman made the ******* cheese. I mean, what is your problem? Other than the fact the child's starved to death by the time you've done that? That's like 5 hours. And what's the point? This is a four year old. They're not going to care. And therefore they want the wonder bread. You'll have made some beautiful, delicious sourdough. And they'll be like, I would eat it, shoving it around the place, when.

Suzie: Can I get adopted from these little pants? Exactly. Feed me.

Mel: Exactly. I'll eat it. And they're showing this image of, like. And then they look, there's another woman I've seen who lives on a farm or something, and she gets up every morning. She's got these two little children, and apparently no help, and she does her rollers every day. So she's got this amazing hair, and she's in this sort of bosomed kind of dresses, very, not necessarily 50s, but very feminine. She home schools them, cooks from scratch every day. And you're like, mate, you're lucky if you've had a shower, if you've got no help. And you've got two little children. Even if you are at home, you're lucky if you can make a sandwich. I mean, it's just ridiculous. It's not real.

Suzie: So you're saying it's unrealistic what's going on.

Mel: I'm not in any way criticizing women who decide for the entirety of their children when they have children to stay at home or decide for a period of time, like a lot of my friends have done bits of time when they've stayed at home. Not at all. That is your choice, and people get in your face about it, and they shouldn't. And if you are, as I said, lucky enough to have a man who makes a good living. Sorry. Who's willing to support you and not make you feel inferior because you're staying at home, you basically both have a role. You both have jobs. It's just one makes money and the other doesn't. Essentially, then all power to you. And I have friends who have done that because they've got three and four kids, and it's worked very well, and they have amazing children because they've been there the whole time, and that's their choice. Right. But to do the almost 1950s. Yeah.

Suzie: They're kind of making it into some fetished thing. Right?

Mel: Yeah.

Suzie: And I've seen it on Instagram, and I don't follow any of these women. And again, I like. Exactly like you're saying. Feminism is about doing whatever the **** you want as a woman, whether that's when you want to stay home or go to work. It should be either or. When it comes to feminism, that's just how it is. But I've seen them on Instagram, and it's all about having the smile on your face, making this meal. You have your children, and you're wearing this very feminine thing, and there is something a little bit creepy about it.

Mel: That's the word. Creepy.

Suzie: And this is why I'm like, I want to push that idea forward. It's like feminism. You can do whatever you want, but there is this fetishized thing where it's like, wait, of course. Make your food from scratch. That's an amazing thing. But the fact that you're kind of putting yourself into this role of, like, that's kind of all you're good for. Does that make sense? Yeah, I mean, I just think I'm saying it wrong.

Mel: I think there've been lots of movies I can think. I can't think of a title now, but sort of showing 1950s and the woman would already be up before the man and make him a lovely breakfast. And she looked really feminine. And then he literally goes off to work with his newspaper and his hat in the car. And then she spends the entire day cleaning the house and making food and picking up the kids and all this sort of stuff. And then he comes home and he's exhausted. Does she take his slippers off, poor love, because he's so tired.

Suzie: Yeah.

Mel: And you're like, no, she's ******* exhausted. Yeah. If you have two, three. I had two children. Two, three, one child. And you are, like I said, taking them, picking them up from school every day, which is their ridiculous hours. Like, it's 833, you can't do anything. Or daycare. If you have little kids in daycare and a lot of when they're very young, you have to take them at like 830 and pick them up eleven. You've basically got them out the door, which is very stressful with your children. You may or may not have managed to shower because you don't have help. You've got them to this place, essentially, so that you can have a break and they're socialized. By the time you come home, it's like nine, whatever. You've had a coffee, you've just like, you may have something to eat. You got to get up and go back again. It's not relaxing. So this idea that all these women who are staying at home, mums are just like, oh, having this great time with their feet up, having the nails done all the time, they may manage at some point while your kids in school to have a nail appointment, but they are not like this idea that they're getting up and you have to get up at five to have your hair done and your, you know, I mean, I only feel now that my kids are older teenagers, you've got time to do a lot of stuff.

Suzie: So they're like, what you're really saying is these people, this isn't reality, obviously. And you're saying that they are completely romanticizing this thing of like, I don't even know how to describe it. Like being a traditionally fetishized woman from the early days that they stay home, they cook, they clean, everything's from scratch. It has to be the best.

Mel: They look amazing at all times.

Suzie: They have to look amazing at all times. There's no room for error kind of thing where it's like, in reality, that's not reality. It's obviously not reality, but obviously that's also Instagram and that's TikTok and that's all.

Mel: Oh, 100%. And it's a trend. But what I think is not helpful is I wish, and I think we are in a time when things are changing. Like a lot of younger women like yourself, looking at older women like myself or women, our whatever thinking, I think you did that wrong. I'd prefer to do this, which is fair enough, because like Gen X is really, my life is very different to my mother and my grandmother's life. My children's life won't be. So it sort of changed very much. Women who are in their fifty s are a generation where we changed a lot of things right. And not necessarily did everything right. And I think it's right for women to look at older women and go, okay, I don't want to do that. I want to do this or whatever. And if you are in a situation where you can choose, because let's be clear here, most women cannot choose. We live in countries. We're in Canada. I'm from the UK. So if you're in Canada, anywhere in western Europe, us, if you want to live in a nice home, two people have to work. Yeah. And I'm not talking about luxuries, about vacations and private schools and stuff like that, but if you want a car or, you know, anything, and even in countries with know like the UK and France and Germany and Italy where we have universal healthcare, life's expensive. We can see that. Go to the supermarket. So most women do not have this choice. I mean, it isn't a choice, is it? You're going to work because you kind of have to.

Suzie: I feel like a lot of these women who are in this tradwife kind of trend thing, they are all living in kind of this isolated place.

Mel: Do you get that vibe too?

Suzie: Typically I feel like aren't living in the city.

Mel: Just looking at the. Yeah, I think there is a lot of that. There's quite a lot of people on Instagram, TikTok who live on a farm.

Suzie: And they have their groceries. They're literally like getting their milk from the ******* cow. It's a lot of literally just going back to the basics, which again, there is nothing wrong with.

Mel: There's nothing wrong with that.

Suzie: But the fact that this is something, we have to talk about it because it's not like this isn't normal anymore. Right? In quotations, this is not normal to be doing this anymore. So why is it that women feel like they want to be going back into these traditional ways?

Mel: Right. I think the element of being a stay-at-home mom, I don't think that's the thing. That's not normal. I think there are less of those because of what we were just talking about. I think the thing is a lot of younger women or women who are now starting to have kids, late 20s, early 30s, whatever, are like, I actually want to be there. I mean, I hear my children saying this and their friends, like, I want to be there for my children, and I don't want to be working.

Suzie: Do you have to give that up?

Mel: Yeah, I don't want to be working 1214 hours a day. Or, I've seen a lot of kids who are teenagers say to their parents, right, you have these corporate jobs and you're never home. I don't want to be like that. I mean, of course, these are teenagers. They don't realize they're living a nice house, go on nice vacations, drive around in a nice car and everything else, because those parents are doing those jobs. And of course, they got to figure that out for themselves. They really have. But, yeah, the sort of romanticizing of this element, like, I was talking about these influence ago. Oh, yeah. What would you like, grilled cheese or spaghetti bolognese? Like, they're making the spaghetti. Nobody is making the spaghetti unless you're a lunatic. The child is four or five. Obviously, you want to be giving that child fresh ingredients and healthy food and whatever. You're lucky if the kid eats spaghetti, because kids are not like that. I tried my kids on lots of things, and I probably was a little bit stricter, like British. I didn't go, okay, well, you don't like it. I'd be like, well, tough. You got to eat it. Whereas kids are like, one week, they like spaghetti. Then you'll get to Wednesday, I don't like spaghetti anymore. I like cheese. And then it'll be Friday, I don't like cheese. So imagine you've made all this homemade cheese or homemade spaghetti. What happens to it then? I mean, it's just a kind of a crazy idea that you have that volume of time. Why do you have to look 1950s? Because I think the thing also is a lot of feminists or arch feminists, like, what they don't like is the submissive nature of it. I know a lot of women in my generation who look down on women who don't work because they think they're submissive. They're wrong. They're not submitting. They have agreed with their husbands that they obviously both have jobs, both have a role, but one actually physically is paid for, and they bring the money into the marriage, and they share it. That's not what we're talking about. This whole 1950s thing is a little. Yeah, like you said, creepy. Like you're submitting.

Suzie: I don't know how else to describe it because it's like, watching these videos is weird to me. And it's like a weird. And they come up on my feed.

Mel: That's the thing.

Suzie: I don't follow these women. I don't want to really learn about this this way, but this comes up. Exactly. And then you start watching it and you're like, wait, what the **** am I watching here? What is going on?

Mel: You have to think about.

Suzie: You're like, is this reality? What is happening here? Who are these people? Are they living in the US? They're living in the US. Are they Mormon? No, they're not Mormon. You're like, what is?

Mel: And I've seen a lot of trad girlfriend, and you're like, okay, so hang on. You're like a 23-year-old girl.

Suzie: You don't have a job.

Mel: What are you doing? If it was my daughter's, it would worry me a lot. Like, if you're with a man and he wants to marry you or he wants to give you something, so you own half the house or whatever it is, that's a bit different. But, I mean, I find that a little hard to kind of grasp. Like, what are you going to do? You're 24 if you're a traditional girlfriend. What if you're then not with this guy? Let's say you spend three years, four years, five years with the guy, you're not working. What the hell are you going to do? Even if he's given you a car or an income afterwards, you're not going to have the same lifestyle, and you don't have a job now to get the lifestyle back. So it's all very kind of worrying to me. And I also think, in a sense, it's diminishing the trad what? Going back to the trad wife thing. It's diminishing a lot of women who are at home who have multiple kids. Or let's face it, one kid is a lot of work and they're staying at home and looking after them. You're saying something about them and they're doing a job. Raising children is a job. It's very hard work and it's kind of thankless. And your husband leaves at, let's say he leaves at 08:00 and he comes back at 637 or whatever kind of traditional time you're with those kids, entertaining them that whole time. When's your time off? Yeah. I mean, if you're traditional.

Suzie: So these traditional people, they aren't having kids, which is probably the most untraditional part about it.

Mel: Yeah. Do most of them not have kids?

Suzie: I really have no, I think they're just looking at. Well, because with the traditional girlfriend, obviously they are fulfilling a need of the boyfriend.

Mel: Well, I think for most of these traditional girlfriends, what I'm seeing is they're getting a very nice lifestyle. Right.

Suzie: So the girls are obviously getting something out of it.

Mel: Right.

Suzie: But they don't have a commitment of marriage yet.

Mel: No.

Suzie: So they're working in sexual kind of.

Mel: Well, yeah. Traditional in that. Traditional.

Suzie: Sexual. I hate saying sexual favors, but in kind of case, that's sort of what it's like, right. Where he comes home from work, you've obviously, like, you're a good cook. You cook all day for him and then he comes home, he's exhausted, you kind of pour him a glass of whiskey and you **** him. Right. Is that the relationship I need to know?

Mel: Yeah. I don't know. And I think the thing is, it's not helping young women, particularly in their aspirations of who they want to be with and whatever. I mean, I would say, and I say this to my children. Say this to anybody, if you're looking for a partner, for a man, you should look for a man. I always say this, and this is quite traditional. Who will step up? Who will, like, when you have children, he's okay if you don't work or you work some of the time or whatever, and he's happy if you're happy. I mean, that's what I looked for and that's what I got. And that's quite traditional. Some of the things I do are quite traditional. And what my husband does is quite traditional. But then on the flip side, he cooks. I don't cook. Yeah. And I do all, like, the sort of stuff with the kids, and he's never sort of done that kind of stuff. So I'm very traditional, but I don't cook so well. That makes it quite modern. I literally, as you know, cook nothing.

Suzie: No, I can't even cook an egg.

Mel: I can cook an egg. I'm not that bad. And I have roasted a chicken twice in my life. But I don't cook because my husband likes it. It's very good at it. And that works for us. It doesn't work for the next person. I have a friend of mine, his husband. Her husband does all the laundry, right. And he's actually quite traditional guy, but he does all the laundry. She hates doing laundry. She does all the cooking works. And you're like, well, fine, do you do what work? I mean, surely that should be the thing. Do what works for you.

Suzie: Well, there has to be a balance, and this balance here is od. There's a reason that we got out of these kinds of traditional values, and that's because women are so sick of just being looked at as something to only care for men and children. Right. We should want our own lives and have our own friends and not be isolated into the just way of thinking.

Mel: Yeah, but I think that's where it becomes weird, is you can very easily, and there are millions of stay-at-home mums who have their own life, they have their friends, they have their stuff going on. They're just not actually going to a quote unquote traditional job and making money. Yeah, but if you have multiple kids, and I'm saying if you actually did all the things, and I'm not talking about making your own pasta and making your own cheese, whatever the people on TikTok are doing cheese toasties, I'm talking about, like, you have to get your kids to school for most places is 830. You got to pick them up at 330. You got to make sure they have lunch, you got to feed them when they come home. Most children these days have hundreds of activities. They have homework. You're not done until 09:00. There isn't actually this idea that women stay at home and women have all this time, so they're taking these kids to school, then they're coming home, running all the errands, then they're doing all the things and depends. Maybe you look after the household bills as well. There's that too. You're doing all of that. You're doing all the washing, you're doing all the ironing, doing all the cooking, doing all the shopping. And then children have, I mean, my children have all these dental appointments, medical appointments, then you do all of that too. It's a lot.

Suzie: Yeah.

Mel: Right. So if you decide that you want to do that and only do that and not have any help of any sort of kind, well, that's what I.

Suzie: Don'T, I don't, there's no way that these traditional wives don't have help with at least the cleaning.

Mel: Yeah, and I think that's a separate issue. I think women who talk to themselves about cleaning is like, you have to do your own cleaning. If you want to do your own cleaning, go ahead but there's something off about it, isn't there? There's something almost like you're saying, if you're a stay-at-home mum, you have to look amazing and have all these frilly pennies on and fully whatevers and have your hair all bouncy, which the reality is, no. If you've gone to the gym, you'll have got up at five or run or whatever before your kids get out, which is what a lot of mums I know would do, would get up at five or six, run or whatever, while dad was at home, get their exercise out the way, be back at 630, start getting the kids up, breakfast, blah, blah, blah. When have you got your hair done?

Suzie: Because what happens when there's an emergency, there's like a death in the family or something bad happens, right? It's not all coming up roses.

Mel: Right?

Suzie: What happens when there's an actual something that you have to be serious about and you don't have time for this and that, yet everyone is used to you taking care of everything. So when there's a point where maybe that does happen, get your hair ******* done.

Mel: Yeah.

Suzie: But then that's when your husband starts going like, hey, why do you look like ****? And then it's like, because I'm having a ******* midlife cris.

Mel: Yeah. There's a sort of level of weirdly traditional. Like, they've conflated the two things. Like, you can be a cool stay at home mum who is amazing for her children and always there, and the children really obviously benefit from that. The more their parents are around, the more they benefit. I mean, it's a reality. And I say, my kids are probably the first generation of kids. Many of them went to daycare. My kids didn't go to daycare, but many of them went to daycare. And that has an impact on kids. And we can argue about what's right and wrong and whatever, and at the end of the day, it's what's right for you. What's right for one person and one couple is not right for the next couple. What I wish people, particularly women, would stop doing is judging the woman. Like, if you went, you had a corporate job and an amazing career and you had three children and you had a nanny or whatever, you did fine and your friend had three children and was a stay-at-home mum and did everything great, let her live her life, you live your life, leave each other alone. But that's not what happens. No, we have to judge continuously. I mean, I've experienced it. It's horrible. I don't understand it. Like, I'm doing me. You do. You leave me alone. And this traditional wife thing to me is another level. It's part of that. Like, why can't we just be like, okay, go and be. Make your own noodles or whatever. Yeah, but we don't need to have a trend around this.

Suzie: Yes.

Mel: So some women who are stay at home wives will be like me and aren't particularly good at cooking, and they'll try their best. Yeah, that's what I mean. It's some kind of weird standard. So are you saying that it's only good enough to be at home if you do look like this and make your own cheese? You can't get over the.

Suzie: Making your own cheese?

Mel: I cannot.

Suzie: Unbelievable.

Mel: Cannot get over it. I knew this woman once who made her own yogurt, and I was just like, they got great yogurt in the supermarket. I mean, I just don't understand it. It's like I'd see all these women killing themselves. Like, at school, you'd have, there's always something you have to bring when the kids are little, like cakes and whatever. And I'm the one mum who never baked a cake ever. I think I once made muffins and I'm just like, you're killing them. These kids don't know the difference, but they don't, like, they don't care. They just want to take something in that's got bright colors and they won't. They won't eat it anyway. Whatever. They'll eat half a bite and whatever. But I mean, on the other hand, I'm being judgmental. All power to you. If you can make cake, because I can't ****** make cake. If you can make cakes for your kids, that's brilliant.

Suzie: Look, I want to know if any of our audience is maybe a traditional, let's say, girlfriend or wife.

Mel: Yeah.

Suzie: Or what are your thoughts on it? This is kind of something new that's coming up again. And it's also part of the kind of conservative more.

Mel: Yeah. And there's a lot of that. And people are getting very into that, making it political.

Suzie: Political thing. But it kind of is. I want to know if any of our audience has any thoughts about this because it is a very, could be divisive subject. Or maybe you're on the traditional wife part of that and you love your life and I want to chat with you about that. Or maybe you're a man whose woman is a traditional wife. What's the story there? So that's what I want to know. And you guys can go to sharemytruth.com, and you guys can leave us a voicemail or send us an email about it.

Mel: We'd like to know.

Suzie: Any other thoughts, Mel?

Mel: No. I guess my only thought is I just would like it if people would not judge each other. And this, to me, the fact that it's a trend seems like a little judgy. I keep saying it's like this is.

Suzie: The only way to be. Do it this way.

Mel: Or a stay-at-home wife.

Suzie: Can't believe you're still using wonder bread kind of thing.

Mel: Exactly. Yeah. Like looking down on you. If you are a stay-at-home mom, looking after your children, which I know is a huge job, and you have an amazing partner, you're in an amazing relationship, a partner. You both support each other. You've agreed to do that. Your husband supports, brings the money in, you do everything else, and you've agreed that. And you have a loving relationship. All power to you. And you're happy as the woman. You're fulfilled. I think that's the last thing I would say is a lot of women assume that women who are doing that role are not fulfilled. And of course that's not true. Of course, they can be if that's what they wanted and that's what they're doing.

Suzie: Let's just hope so. I don't buy it, to be honest. I am on the side of, like, you need ******* more in your life, but obviously I'm a much different person than these people. But I'm on the side of, like, you need more in your life than just your family. There has to be more in your life than you need some other kind of passion. Because when you're not getting, because this happens a lot. I don't have experience with it personally because I don't have children. But it's a thankless job, like you said, right. It's a very unappreciated job. So either you're a ******* saint if you don't need those thank yous and blah, blah, blah, but it's ******* hard work, and you need something out of that to kind of make you feel like yourself again.

Mel: Yeah, 100%. But that doesn't necessarily have to be a job. That could be a lot of different things.

Suzie: Yeah, it could be a happy hobby. Of course, I'm not saying a job.

Mel: Charity work, it could be like you have a very keen interest in something. I know you read a lot. It could be a lot of different things. And also your children go through lots of different stages. So when they're little, lot more hands on, and then maybe you can have more as they get older. But again, I just think it's so individual. It also depends on where you live your lifestyle. Do you live in a sort of country, rural setting, city setting? That's very different. But at the end of the day.

Suzie: Literally taking the bacon home, making it.

Mel: Exactly do what you want, live your life. That would be what I would say.

Suzie: All right, guys, let us know what you think. We can't wait to hear from you. Love you. Next time sharing my truth pod is so excited to partner with vibrat8r.com, where the a in vibrator is the number eight. This is an extremely exclusive code where no other podcast has it. If you go to vibr8tor.com right now, use the code MS 15. That's MS 15. At vibr8tor.com, you can now get 15% off anything in store that's any sex toys for you, your partner, your neighbor, your mom. We don't judge. We don't care. Get it now. Go to the link in our bio, put in the code and get jiggy with it.

Mel: Thanks so much for listening. Please rate and review this podcast and follow us on social at @sharingmytruthpod and leave us a voicemail on our website sharingmytruth.com, to share your stories and experiences with us. We'll see you next time.

Suzie: Bye bye.

Mel: Three, two, one. Yeah, don't get.