Annaliese Dent and Brad Kearns: Tossing cheese at baby + parenting epiphanies

Posted in The Parent Panel.

Posted on March 15, 2019April 10, 2019 by Shevonne Hunt

Annaliese Dent co-host of The Queen Sesh podcast and Brad Kearns from Dad Mum Life join Shevonne to share their opinions and thoughts on the events of the week.

In this episode the team talk about:

Whether throwing cheese at a baby’s face is funny
If children should be staying home for two years before child care
Emotional labour and whether women are being “martyrs”
Their latest “ah ha” moment as a parent

Listen to Annaliese and Brad on The Parent Panel

Is throwing cheese at a baby’s head funny?

There’s a new social media trend doing the rounds of parents. The #cheesechallenge involves throwing a cheese slice on a baby’s face. Apparently, it first started as something people did to pets. Then a dad, Charles Amara, did it on his son’s face and a craze was born.

Is the #cheesechallenge cruel or funny? Would you have tried this on your child when they were a baby? How do you feel about posting funny photos of your kids online?

#cheesechallenge she looked at him like “is she serious” ??? pic.twitter.com/ZeDJZdOOu6

— anna (@hypeanna_) March 8, 2019

Should children be staying home for at least two years?

This week the Fairfax press published a story about maternity leave. While many workplaces offer six months paid leave, experts in the article were arguing that a year or more would be ideal. Parenting educator Steve Biddulph believes that in the best case scenario a child should stay out of care until they are at least two years. Author of Baby Love Robin Barker agrees.

How do you feel about this argument? Do you think children should be at home until they are two?

Can emotional labour be shared?

This week writer Angela Mollard wrote about emotional labour in an article for News Ltd. She argues that women are to blame for the emotional load they carry, that we’re not inviting men in to share the burden. She says that “conversations about purpose, responsibility, shared tasks and mutual happiness either didn’t happen or were only brought up in times of stress. I also noticed women, myself included, had a problem with control.

“We thought we did tasks better and so we became domestic gatekeepers, shooing hapless husbands away because they didn’t do things how we wanted.”

Are women shutting men out of emotional labour? Can these tasks be shared? How does it work in your home?

What is your parenting epiphany?

Recently presenter Shevonne Hunt had an epiphany: not everyone can be an exceptional parent. We can’t all make food from scratch, or create amazing craft experiences for our kids. Like, we can’t all be Lady Gaga. We can’t all be perfect parents.

What has been your big parenting “ah ha” moment?

GUESTS

Annaliese Dent– @annaliesedent
Brad Kearn –@dadmumofficial

HOST

Shevonne Hunt – @shevonnehunt

PRODUCER

Elise Cooper- @elisejcooper

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