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Angela Mollard: I’ve arrived at the age where I don’t care what others think of me

Bullied incessantly as a young reporter by a newspaper executive, Angela Mollard thought she wanted him to confront his cruelty, but when his name cropped up her reaction was unexpected.

For years he was my nemesis. A former newspaper executive who’d treated me horrendously in my early 20s, blanking me at best and blaming me at worst. He sneered whenever he walked past my desk, questioned my ability and slapped me with an unwarranted written warning.

Others witnessed it but didn’t intervene. I could have left the job but persevered. When I went to ask his superior for a pay rise, he instantly granted it, remarking: “I’m sure there’s been times when the treatment here has brought you to tears.”

“I’ve never cried in this office,” I replied. It was a lie. I’d wept in the bathroom.

This column was originally published in January 2023 and has been resurfaced as part of The Courier-Mail summer columnists series.

That was 25 years ago but I’ve never forgotten the bastard who bullied me. Every year I’d Google him. A few times I composed an email, pointing out how cruel he’d been and asking what he’d had against me. Career success emboldened me but mostly I wanted him to feel as uncomfortable as he’d made me. But I never pushed send.

Then, recently, a friend in London said she’d been dealing with him over a project. When we got off the phone I turned his name over in my brain, waiting for it to strike and ignite those long-ago emotions.

But I felt nothing: not the anger that had simmered for years; not the indignity of being inaccurately judged; not the misplaced shame that comes with being targeted.

Finally, I’d joined the Sisterhood of Zero F**ks, the moment in a woman’s life where she suddenly doesn’t give a damn what others think of her. With all the disregard you might apply to a pesky cockroach, I’d flicked him and his appalling behaviour far from my mind.

I wish there was a more palatable term for this state of being. But nothing so accurately represents the moment where you realise that middle age is not some ghastly wasteland characterised by physical degradations, old hurts and diminished visibility but a glorious clearing where you finally grow your own spine, recognise you’ve survived multiple calamities and flourished in spite of setbacks, and consequently give zero f**ks.

Cate Blanchett accused the awards industry of nurturing a “televised horse race”. Picture: Kevin Winter/Getty Images for Critics Choice Association
Cate Blanchett accused the awards industry of nurturing a “televised horse race”. Picture: Kevin Winter/Getty Images for Critics Choice Association

Everywhere I look, women of my vintage are unapologetically giving ZFs. They’re not so much invoking the woke cliches of “speaking your truth” or “stepping into your power” but boldly delivering common sense in the same brisk manner their grandmothers dusted flour-covered hands on their aprons.

Whatever you think of her, author JK Rowling is at the vanguard of this self-realised power, calling out the decision in Scotland to house transgender women in female jails after a transgender double rapist spent days in a female prison. Her detractors may position her as a transphobe but the 57-year-old Harry Potter author argues she is simply protecting the rights and safety of women. As she stated on Twitter: “Deeply amused by those telling me I’ve lost their admiration due to the disrespect I show violent, duplicitous rapists. I shall file your lost admiration in the box where I keep my missing f**ks.”

Actress Cate Blanchett has been similarly emboldened, accusing the awards industry of nurturing a “televised horse race”. While her comments after winning a Critics’ Choice Award have divided fans, at 53 she’s sparking a conversation. “I would love it if we would just change this whole f***ing structure,” she said. “It’s like, what is this patriarchal pyramid where someone stands up here? Why don’t we just say there was a whole raft of female performances that are in concert and dialogue with one another?”

JK Rowling. Picture: Angela Weiss / AFP
JK Rowling. Picture: Angela Weiss / AFP

After years of interviewing mature celebrities who cite no longer fixating on what others think of them as the key benefit of growing older and wiser, I thought the ZF state might elude me. Women, particularly, are so indoctrinated in their own fallibility and people pleasing that they don’t realise the shift. A friend interstate realised she’d reached ZF status when she casually told a Bumble date he might improve his chances of finding love if he asked women a question rather than talking incessantly about himself. The benefit of arriving at a ZF position is not that you no longer care. Rather, you care more about things that genuinely matter. Until this week few knew that JK Rowling had donated a considerable amount in 2021 to rescue female lawyers from Afghanistan as the Taliban closed in.

There’s also the clothes issue – the freedom of finally dressing for yourself. I’m a fan of former magazine editor Jo Elvin’s Instagram account where she posts her outfits for the week with the hashtag #clothesmyhusbandhates. Actress Kerry Condon, Oscar nominated for her brilliance in The Banshees of Inisherin, is similarly motivated when approaching the red carpet. “It’s not the sole purpose of my life to, God forbid, turn a man on,” she said this week.

As for me, I’m not sure if it’s hard-won wisdom or hormonal alchemy that finally makes you trust your internal navigation system rather than the unsolicited opinions of others. I don’t care why my bullying boss didn’t like me. It was his issue. Happily, it’s no longer mine.

Stop over-parenting and gift your kids some ‘radical downtime’

Three stories from the frontline of parenting.

First, a baby – no more than four months old – being cuddled by his grandma in a cafe while his mother grows more agitated. “We need to get him to swimming lessons,” she says, scooping the child from his grandmother’s arms.

Second, a 12-year-old neglects to remember the trials for an interschools basketball team. He’s forgotten his sports gear and calls his mother in distress.

She tears a strip off him, dashes home from work to grab his sneakers but nevertheless he doesn’t make the team because he didn’t arrive prepared. Both are distraught.

Third, a tween girl is invited to a birthday party on the same day her family has booked to fly interstate for a relative’s wedding. Her parents pay $150 to change her flight and join them that evening.

“We didn’t want her to miss out,” they say, at the same time acknowledging that she’d been to four birthday parties already that month.

I present these stories, observed or related to me in recent weeks, without judgment. I’ve been the parent in a version of all of them. But now I’m finally out of the school-age trenches I can see, with glaring hindsight, what hyper-vigilant parenting can do to kids and what it may do to yours.

Helicopter, tiger, lawnmower – whatever type of parenting you want to call it, most of us are more involved in our children’s lives than at any time in history. We want them to do their best, we want to give them the best and, crucially, we want them to be happy.

And yet we’re making them unhappy. Or something is. They’re struggling in record numbers. They’re anxious and depressed. Some cut themselves. Others have troubling relationships with food and drugs. Some, heartbreakingly, take their own lives.

I can’t pretend to know the solution but have had time to reflect. So here, as the new school year begins, are the four things I would’ve done differently if I could go back.

I would’ve listened more and solved less. In retrospect, I robbed my kids of the opportunity to regulate their own emotions because I was constantly directing or correcting them.

Kids, according to psychologist Michael Hawton, need to develop their own internal locus of control, essentially a belief that they, rather than external factors, govern their ability to solve problems. They need to develop mastery over their life circumstances. This is the focus of Hawton’s brilliant new book, The Anxiety Coach, which effectively teaches parents how to help their children manage anxious feelings.

With psychologists in such high demand, he argues that parents are ideal first-responders and can facilitate their kids in forging a resilient mindset. When it comes to anxiety, which experts agree is two-thirds due to habits learnt and only a third due to genes and temperament, he believes too many are either acquiescing to or accommodating their child’s distress.

“I prefer to prepare the child for the road, not the road for the child,” Hawton says.

Secondly, we would’ve done less. So much less. Fewer activities, birthday parties, sports teams, varied holidays. Parents are dementedly booking their kids into self-improvement activities yet over-scheduling not only creates stress, it stymies wonder. When I think of the happy times of my childhood, they’re not the achievements but the quiet moments when I felt cocooned or delighted by the world – doing underwater somersaults alone on a soft blue day; doodling on my thigh during a car journey; exploring with my brothers on the strange island-like tombolo near my grandparents’ home. Babies should be encouraged to love water but they don’t need swimming lessons and tweens don’t need to go to every birthday party, especially if it conflicts with a family occasion. Hawton told me our kids need “radical downtime”.

I love the phrase. It’s an invitation to let go of the busy brain in favour of what some call the Buddha brain.

We yearn for our kids to be popular and proficient but it may be that an ability to daydream is the greater gift, and more protective. How can we get comfortable with ourselves if we never give our minds space to muster their own magic?

Thirdly, I would’ve celebrated life skills over accomplishments. We’re a world that strives for excellence yet I suspect it’s competence that grounds us. We champion our kids from the sidelines, nag them to do their homework, and bathe in reflected glory when they become head boy or score a century. We teach them that the trajectory is upwards not outwards yet reaching the top, whatever that is, brings little contentment.

Kendall Jenner became the world’s youngest self-made billionaire at 21 but she suffers debilitating anxiety. Robin Williams was the funniest man on our movie screens but what if he’d learnt to reshape his distorted thinking.

I wish I’d spent more time talking with my kids about how to foster good relationships, self-soothe, invest money, cook, communicate effectively and help a friend. Finally, I would have spent more time gazing at their faces.

Angela Mollard
Angela MollardCourier-Mail columnist

Angela Mollard is a Courier-Mail columnist who covers a range of topics including parenting and relationship news.

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Original URL: https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/angela-mollard-kids-need-less-activities-and-more-time-to-wonder/news-story/ca80e013369733721a4e61d2008d3881