Wippa’s campaign against screen time starts in his own home
Wippa’s lighthearted radio vibe turns serious when it comes to getting kids of their phones. In his family, ‘choose your own adventure’ makes real life fun again.
NSW
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Family is everything to Michael “Wippa” Wipfli and his wife Lisa – so spending time with kids Ted, 9, Jack, 8, and Francesca, 4, means the world.
It’s one of the reasons they are so passionate about living life in real life – not on a screen, like so many do.
And it’s not just the kids who benefit.
Because that means Saturday morning adventures. Fishing off the back of the tinny he’s had since he was 16. Uno championships to rival the fiercest Olympic final. Building swings in the backyard from scratch or creating a good old-fashioned flower press for Lisa’s Mother’s Day offering.
But it all comes down to time. And finding joy in the simple things – getting kids excited about hanging out with their folks – Dad jokes and all.
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“The hard thing with keeping them off social media, and screens in general, and just making sure they’re picking up skills away from the couch – I think a lot of that is pressure on the parent to come up with something (to do),” Wippa says.
“So we’re constantly trying to come up with something. And some days you have an answer.
“Sometimes you burn out, and sometimes you’re tired, and you go, ‘You know what, guys, put on a movie, go and play a computer game, it doesn’t matter.’ There’s a time and a place for all of it, we just have to balance it out.
“That’s the challenge. But I’m also deeply inspired by what adventure you can put together next.”
That may mean filling up huge balloons with water and swinging them from trees in the backyard on a Saturday morning, running the gauntlet to avoid the dreaded water bomb.
“I’m completely obsessed with spending as much quality time as possible, because, as we all know, it’s just flies,” he says.
“To think that Ted’s going to be 10 next year blows my mind.”
The radio funnyman is determined to invest time now, so his offspring want to hang out with Dad instead of reaching for anything with a screen. It’s the reason he’s tirelessly campaigned to lift the age of social media from 13 up to 16, where it belongs.
He originally wanted to get it done before Ted’s 13th birthday – but with 116,000 signatures on a petition and the support of politicians ready to act, it’ll be done by his 10th.
“There are kids on the edge,” the Nova radio personality tells Sydney Weekend of his passion project, 36 Months.
“There’s enough talk – we’re losing kids.
“Kids are dying. I wish I was being dramatic, but unfortunately, it’s the harsh reality of what we have here. We represent common sense, and we’ve got 116,000 motivated, concerned parents that are telling the politicians what they want.
“And let’s break it down. Politicians, your role is to represent the people and we need you more than ever right now.”
That thinking is backed by fact. Shockingly skyrocketing rates of anxiety, depression and other mental health issues were identified in News Corp’s own Let Them Be Kids campaign, also calling for a minimum age of 16 for socials.
The collectives are yelling for change – and for Wippa, true change starts at home.
“We have a new trend at the moment in the house, and it’s very serious – it’s the card game Uno – there is a lot of Uno going on at the moment,” he continues.
So who is the Wipfli Uno champion? Probably the youngest of the lot, Francesca, he concedes. “She’ll hit me with a pick-up four – and double that, it’ll be a pick-up eight, and she’ll laugh.
“But we do go on a lot of adventures. We get down at the beach a lot. We like going for walks and playing in the backyard. The boys and I and Francesca, we just built a big swing to hang from the tree in the backyard, and what’s awesome about that is, we went and bought all the timber – the kids are sanding the timber, they’re painting the timber, they’re drilling the holes, they’re using the saw.
“We made flower presses for Mum for Mother’s Day, and I said to Ted, let’s go make these flower presses, and he goes, ‘Dad, flower presses are so boring.’
“And I said, ‘You know what, mate, it’s not actually about the flower press’. It’s about our time together out the back in the shed with the tools, talking, teaching – whatever topics might come up – that’s what it’s about. Not the flower press. And we’re going to get some nice flowers – part of it is the adventure we go on to get the flowers. The flower press is the present at the end, but we’re going to go on a full adventure before we actually hand that present over – that’s what the flower press is about.
“A little bit like, when I was 16, I got a tinny – a boat, and it was tiny. Anyway, Dad has had it in the garage forever, and he rang the other day and said, ‘I’m going to get rid of this tinny.’ And I said, ‘No, you are not.’
“And we go out fishing, and quite often it’s just myself and the boys, and we don’t catch much, but it’s got nothing to do with the fish.
“It’s about choosing who’s going to be captain that day, and the captain wears the hat, the captain checks that the lanyard’s on, the captain checks that the bungs are in, the captain checks that the life vests are in the boat and ready to go – it’s all about the responsibility.
“And then when we’re in the boat, it’s about the conversation. And they’re like, ‘Are we gonna catch a fish?’ – but I don’t really care. But we always do – we put a GoPro down on the fish basket that’s got some burly in it that goes down to the bottom, so the running joke when we don’t catch anything is, ‘Well, we caught it on film.’ When we come back and we have a look at what we’ve got – do we have anything to show Mum and Francesca? Well, we do. We’ve got footage of a fish not choosing our bait and eating from the burly bucket.” It’s the kind of stuff he liked to do with his own dad when he was a kid.
“But at the same time, I think, with my job as well, I’m lucky enough to have a bit of time in the afternoon, because I’m working such early mornings – and I just want to stare into their eyes.”
Wippa’s Mum and Dad live in Melbourne, and whenever they visit their eastern suburbs home his Dad always says, ‘You know what I love about this place? It’s got nothing to do with the house. It’s a fun home. Such a fun home.’
“Don’t get me wrong – there are challenging times,” he says.
“Like last night, Lisa had gone out, and it took me an hour to get Francesca to sleep as she held on to Mum’s pyjamas and cried for her, then woke at 3am wanting her blanket and a drink when I had to get up at four.
“It paints a pretty picture when I tell the great stories, but there’s a truckload of challenges.”
The family pride is deep-rooted, and happens to be the subject of new SBS documentary series, Shaun Micallef’s Origin Odyssey, which sees Micallef travel abroad with other much-loved Australian comedians, including Wippa, as they make surprising and often very funny discoveries about their family history and country of their ethnic origin.
Wippa travels to Switzerland to discover why his grandfather Jack decided to move to Australia when he was just 20 years old. He shares his family connection to the famed Swiss Army knife and, for the first time, sees a picture of his great-grandfather Anton – Jack’s father. It is the first time anyone in Wippa’s family has laid eyes on Anton, and it’s special.
“We didn’t have a photo of my great- grandfather, so Jack’s father, Anton – I didn’t even really know his name,” he says.
“No one had laid eyes on him, ever, so to turn up one day on a train, which he probably worked on – in the museum – and have them go through the history and see that he was a conductor on that train that ran through Switzerland and possibly into Italy was really special.
“I think the other genius about this show is when you go back in family history. You look at what life would have been if your forefathers hadn’t moved on from where they are to where you are now. I mean, life in Australia is very different to life in Switzerland.”
He and Lisa named their Jack after Wippa’s grandfather Jack, who he never got to meet.
“Jack died when Dad was 17, and it was very challenging for Dad at the time, because can you imagine being 17 and losing a dad?” he says. “But not only that, it was his final year of school, so he got a call from the headmaster and was pulled out of class, and then he had to head to the hospital to say goodbye. So it was extremely challenging for him, and me getting to meet Jack has always been Dad’s one wish.
“He always says, ‘he would have loved you’ – but we celebrate him through this show, which I love. When our Jack was born and I told Dad ‘we’re going to name him Jack’, he burst into tears. Magical,” he says of the nostalgia.
“It’s so important. The history of his side of the family is so important to him, because we came out here and things changed,” he says.
“He was always interested in why they came to Australia, why they made the move, but also he’s very proud of his Swiss heritage, because Jack Wipfli came out to Australia, he couldn’t speak any English and it’s a great Australian story. Like many of these stories of immigrants that have come to this land of opportunity without being able to understand or speak the language, he started a business called Wipfli Plastics, which earned a solid living and Dad’s view of telling and sharing stories is simply to keep the family history alive.
“That’s how it’s done.
“So when you’re enriched with a photo of Anton who we had never seen before, that is a really, really significant thing for the whole family. So that meant the world.”
As did the way Micallef took Wippa’s journey down memory lane with him.
“For so long, I’d heard from people that had worked with Shaun say just how brilliant he is, and I underestimated it completely,” he says.
“He’s phenomenal.
“He’s unbelievably funny – and he’s next level funny, because he’s next level smart … and the two of us hit it off right away. Shaun was the puppet master, because I didn’t really know what was going on from minute to minute.
“So one minute I’m standing on the side of a ridge in a blizzard, and Shaun’s trying to tell me a story about a dog and a bridge, and I’m freezing cold because it’s minus 600 degrees outside in the Swiss Alps, and the next thing you know, I’m rowing in a two-person boat, just a little wooden dinghy floating on a lake somewhere in picturesque Switzerland.
“So this was sort of part of the adventure and how each day played out.
“But when you work with Shaun Micallef you feel like you’re becoming a better person by the hour.”
Thinking about the simple Swiss life brings him back to a teen’s life without social media, and why we all seem to be craving a break from screens. At a time when life is 24-7, it seems less is more after all.
“I think at times we are craving a more simple life,” he says.
“It’s had an amazing reaction, because it represents common sense, and I think that’s what’s lost sometimes. So trying to change the age of kids joining social media from 13 to 16 – that 36 months is a child’s brain developing.
“We want them to enjoy the simple things … which has been part of our history – but more than anything, it’s a practical way of building a sense of belonging, a sense of community.
“It keeps community together – and a chance to get to know yourself before the rest of the world does. That’s what the important part of it is. Belonging is everything.
“And looking at the family history and what we did on this show, that’s a big part of it, so that reinforces why it’s so special.
“The topic of social media for a young brain is a minefield,” Wippa continues.
“From inappropriate approach to bullying to ranking themselves, to self harm – the extensions go on and on and on.”
He and Melbourne developmental pediatrician Dr Billy Garvey went out to schools to talk to teens about the issue itself and how they were being affected. They had a session at Granville Boys High and Beverly Hills Girls High and it showed them exactly why the change needs to happen.
“We ended each session with the question – ‘If social media didn’t exist, would you be okay with that?’ – and nearly every hand went up in the room,” he says.
“So when you break down what it is and how it affects people, and some of the horror stories that we’ve obviously heard as part of putting your hand up and advocating for trying to control this space – the kids themselves are saying, we’d actually like a break.
“If we can change the law and we’re moving in the right direction, then at least we can give some clear air for the parents, and some level of parental control – that’s what we need.”
He and Rob Galluzzo from Finch Production Company had been talking about the issue for a few years, and were buoyed at the prospect when the world started to see changes happening state by state in the US.
“We thought there’s some nice momentum there to pull the trigger,” he says.
“And I remember at the time thinking, well, Ted’s nine, so I’ve got four years to get this done, so that’s my commitment.
“I believe we can get it done.”
This week Prime Minister Anthony Albanese committed to raising the age limit before March’s election – a promise experts agree will save lives.
“It just felt like everyone had been heard,” Wippa tells Sydney Weekend after the news broke on Tuesday.
“The Prime Minister encouraged everyone to sign the petition and we are now at 116,000 – the question was always going to be … what’s next?
“Because the people have spoken, so this was a great relief … all those distressed parents out there, and some kids, quietly, as well – would be thinking ‘okay, I can take a deep breath here’.
“It feels like a relief. I truly believe we are going to save lives today.”
Between trying to change government policy and building swings in the backyard, Wippa’s also the funnyman we hear on radio every morning with his mates Fitzy and Kate Ritchie.
He can rap with the best of them too. And if you didn’t know his past, it would be hard to know if he’s joking or serious when he talks about writing his first erotic novel, or launching a dog rainbow toy business coloured the way dogs see rainbows.
Did I mention he doesn’t have a dog?
“You’re sounding like my wife,” he laughs when asked … why?
“I think she’s confused by it too. She’s given up trying to work out whether I’m serious or not, but when the other day, she said, ‘You can’t even know if these rainbows work’ and I said ‘Well, we would never test products – that’s rule number one in the pet industry,” he laughs.
“When you talk about looking back, if my kids were to do the research on me, it was great earlier on in the year to launch my first erotic novel, The Far Too Personal Trainer,” he quips.
“And if we jump to last weekend, we launched a brand new pet toy, a pet product, and a pet company called Rainbow-wow – because dogs have really never been able to see a rainbow. When a dog sees colour, they see a scale of blue through to yellow, so we’ve created a rainbow the way a dog would see a rainbow. So you’re finally seeing a rainbow the way your dog does.
“When I come in, when I come into the studio, Fitzy and K Rich are here quite often going, ‘OK, what are you doing this week? You don’t make any sense,’” he laughs.
“So no, I don’t have a dog. But here’s what I’ll tell you, the dog toy is just the beginning of something really exciting to do with how dogs see.
“I have a four-year-old instead of a dog and they are just as busy – although I believe there could be a dog on the cards for next year. We might even put together a float for the Mardi Gras in our rainbow colours – this is the stuff that keeps me awake at night,” he jokes. ■
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