Wheel out the Confetti Cannons

Parents Who Think debate Podcast arrived

It’s been one long ass work month doing MANY NEW things.

Foundation building then launching Parents Who Think which I knew would scare me witless when I dreamt it up, back more than a year ago, trudging through ankle high mud paths in the fields surrounding our home in Somerset. <and breathe>

Even then I didn’t, and couldn’t appreciate, how much of a daring act this might be. The Parents Who Think debate show is at the baby beginning. IT BIRTHS TODAY. Like anything freshly delivered it’s bound to start out different than it arrives. Just look what happened to the School for Mothers podcast. Five years on and its bolder more ballsy cousin Parents Who Think took over the mic.

Choked as I read this beautiful saying because moments earlier I’d said to myself “You’ve bitten off more than you can chew. Again”:

THE WAY THAT YOU GET THERE IS WHERE YOU ARRIVE

I want to arrive at a place of blow-the-doors-wide-open understanding and respectful acceptance. (There’s more but that can wait for later). Seriously, how can a debate show where three parents share their wildly different opinions on hot button parent dilemmas help deliver what I hope for?

If we want something fresh, new and different we must embrace jeopardy. There’s danger in crafting something untried and untested. Some say there’s good reason why something hasn’t been ‘done’ [Edison made an electric pen in 1875 which many moons later became what we know as the tattoo gun].

Innovation interrupts the status quo. And like any person with a notion in their head, the possibility that a debate show for parents ‘could be different and could work’ outweighed my fears of doing this.

The PWT format is different that most, maybe all, podcasts. TBH I’m told by industry giants

Tink Media

that there’s no other show concept like Parents Who Think. I trust them completely yet gasp at this reckoning, as there’s 4MM+ shows.

I’m not knocking the ‘intro, hello, interview, outro’ show - how could I, having interviewed nigh on 400 people in this format?! But listening in on conversations between anyone and everyone, if we’re not careful can become a lazy, not particularly creative, route to crafting podcasts.

What I took away from five+ years of interviewing accomplished people who were mostly strangers to me, was I’m interested in marrow-deep discussions we don’t frequently hear. I won’t rehash words about the constraints of our current echo chamber and group think lives which (social) media contributes to. Over the past three months I’ve recorded several episodes about this, including commentary on cancel culture and my Katie Hopkins interview¹. As troubling as that recording was to me, surface talk disagrees with me.

I can’t guarantee that the way PWT is built out and crafted will work. You might even find it dull, though boring isn’t my usual M.O. And there’s always the fact that in times when I/we want to download a Netflix series I/we can binge on instantly, the wait between weeks might irk.

If it’s any help Maggie Smith, Dowager in Downton suggests, “

Debate done different is the aim. Where real opinions meet real parents.

Not the spoken-about-in-hushed-voices stuff. I want to hear what parents are really thinking in their ordinary voices. Loud and proud of their opinions.

But in a group discussion, the ex academic and ESRC Fellow² in me knows: get people in a room to debate an awkward topic and they’ll merge their views, if only to seem socially acceptable. They might not compromise their opinions entirely but we can’t be sure they won’t dilute them a smidge. Or a lot.

How many times have you nodded along in a conversation knowing you disagree with all of or a lot of what’s being said? To keep up appearances we go along with things.

PWT is designed to preserve the integrity of my three guest’s opinions. Unfiltered, candid and generous voices offered on difficult dilemmas.

In today’s first episode in the debate, “Is Having a Favourite Child Okay?” you’ll meet Darya, Jamie and Peggy³. One debate spans across three episodes.

If you want to get to know why parents think like they do then listening to these three short episodes will do the trick. They land each Saturday for three weeks. Then we move to the next debate.

Since I’m not the sort of person to ask people to do something I’m unwilling to do, I dish my dirt on topics in a segment called Dishing the Dirt. I won’t lie, I find this painful.

In this first debate you’ll hear from 4 of my 10 children on why they think they’re the favourite, or not. They recorded clips separately and sent them to me. They’re shared, unedited to add to the picture. I tackle the question “do I have a favourite child?” head on, because my guests do. This is definitely messy, not for listeners but I know it is for me.

Curating these brave voices is affirming, edgy and beautiful. It’s also poignant and an enormous privilege to be allowed into people’s stories of where they came from and how this shapes the parents they are today.

Agreement is not the goal in Parents Who Think. Debate done different is.

Because in our differences we find more of our humanity.

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Parents Who Think lands today. I know I’ve said that already, I’m nervous. In Episode 1 I’m laying out the foundations of the podcast more than I’ll need to usually. Episode 2 and 3 are let’s call them, meaty. Veggies are not more likely to be offended or surprised by views shared in these episodes. Frankly, it’s hard to tell what might or might not be agreed with or eye rolled over. You be the judge of that!

Before I go, I’ll whoop loud enough to wake Myrtle my cat if you’d listen to episodes as they start dropping from today. And I’d be over the moon for your support if you can leave a positive rating and review. That would truly make my day! 

Thanks for being on this ride together,

1. This episode is “The Episode I Was Too Afraid To Publish”. It’s commentary on why I didn’t publish my interview with her in full but instead shared chunks of our conversation. This is a critical analysis of where things are at in terms of who we give voice to. PWT was informed by many hours considering what to do with my recording with Katie.

2. Economic and Social Research Council

3. This debate happens to be all mothers. Other debates will feature mixed genders, as well as all fathers.