No Filter

When Josh and Sean Szeps met they knew instantly they'd found "the one." How did they know? Because Josh insulted Sean.

The pair met in 2011 in a dive bar in New York, moved in together in 2012, were engaged by 2013 and married in 2014. While many gay couples feel that having a relationship and a family is difficult, for Sean and Josh they felt they were always in the right place at the right time. Gay marriage became legal in the US just as they were considering getting married, the price of IVF started to come down just as they were wondering whether they should start a family. And when they decided that surrogacy was the way they wanted to go, the approval process was fast.

In 2017 their twins, Stella and Cooper were born in America. The product of Josh's sperm and an egg donated by a female member of Sean's family.

They've now moved to Australia and are raising their twins here. They join Mia to share their story...

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CREDITS:

Host: Mia Freedman 

With thanks to special guests Josh and Sean Szeps

Listen to Sean on The Baby Bubble here:

Go and see Josh's comedy show #youtoo: why social media is ruining everything - tickets at comedyfestival.com.au.

Producer: Elissa Ratliff

GET IN TOUCH:

Call the PodPhone on 02 8999 9386.

Email the show at [email protected]

Find any book mentioned at apple.co/mamamia

No Filter is a podcast by Mamamia. Find more shows here.

 

Become a Mamamia subscriber: https://www.mamamia.com.au/subscribe

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For the past 20 years, Mia's guest has been the voice for over a thousand victims and survivors of child sexual abuse.

Right now, Lisa Flynn is representing the father of one of the choir boys who was sexually abused by George Pell at the age of 13. This boy’s young life was never the same and “R,” as he’s been known throughout the trial, withdrew from his family and began taking drugs very soon after the abuse happened.

Now Pell is serving a prison term of 3 years and 8 months for the abuse of those two boys and on the day he was sentenced, Lisa sat beside R’s father in the courtroom.

She joins Mia now to talk about all of it....

Click here to subscribe to No Filter.

CREDITS:

Host: Mia Freedman 

With thanks to special guest Lisa Flynn from Shine Lawyers

Producer: Elissa Ratliff

GET IN TOUCH:

Call the PodPhone on 02 8999 9386.

Email the show at [email protected]

Find any book mentioned at apple.co/mamamia

No Filter is a podcast by Mamamia. Find more shows here.

 

Become a Mamamia subscriber: https://www.mamamia.com.au/subscribe

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Six months after her husband died unexpectedly, Simi Polonsky gave birth to her third child.  She was grieving the death of her husband, Shua, and celebrating the birth of her new son.

And not in a million years did she think that her life would end up looking like that.

Simi was born into a big Jewish family in Sydney, her father was an Orthodox Rabbi and she was one of seven kids. In her early 20s, Simi moved to New York with her sister. She married the love of her life, launched a successful business with her sister Chaya called TheFrockNYC, and started a family.

And then on an ordinary day in 2017, something unexpected and shocking happened.  Her strong, healthy husband got sick and died all in the space of a couple of weeks.

Simi was back in Australia at the end of last year and she shared her story with Mia...

Click here to subscribe to No Filter.

CREDITS:

Host: Mia Freedman 

With thanks to special guest Simi Polonsky - find her business on Instagram here https://thefrocknyc.com/ 

Producer: Elissa Ratliff

GET IN TOUCH:

Call the PodPhone on 02 8999 9386.

Email the show at [email protected]

Find any book mentioned at apple.co/mamamia

No Filter is a podcast by Mamamia. Find more shows here.

 

Become a Mamamia subscriber: https://www.mamamia.com.au/subscribe

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A woman’s work is never done. And author Gemma Hartley knows this.

Whether she’s at home or in the office, there’s a whole layer of labour done predominantly by women that most men can’t even see. Emotional labour is being the person who notices problems, delegates solutions and makes sure life goes smoothly for everyone around her. It’s noticing there’s barely any milk left and then doing something about it - and changing the toilet paper roll when it’s run out.

This work is invisible and exhausting at the same time. And it’s not just something experienced by mothers or women in relationships.

A couple of years ago Gemma Hartley wrote an essay about emotional labour after a particularly disastrous Mothers Day. It went viral and it led to her writing a whole book on the subject - Gemma’s book is called Fed Up and she joins me now to talk about it...

Click here to subscribe to No Filter.

CREDITS:

Host: Mia Freedman 

With thanks to special guest Gemma Hartley http://www.gemmahartley.com/ 

Find her book Fed Up at apple.co/mamamia

Producer: Elissa Ratliff

GET IN TOUCH:

Call the PodPhone on 02 8999 9386.

Email the show at [email protected]

Find any book mentioned at apple.co/mamamia

No Filter is a podcast by Mamamia. Find more shows here.

 

Become a Mamamia subscriber: https://www.mamamia.com.au/subscribe

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If people stop you in the street, what’s the first thing they say to you? "Hello!"? Or "How are you?"

For author and journalist Carly Findlay her experience is very different.

Carly was born with a rare genetic skin disorder called Ichthyosis, which affects approximately one in 200,000 newborns.  Ichthyosis causes the skin to build up and scale and when people see Carly they often ask what happened to her.  Did she get burnt?  Has she had microdermabrasion?

They often think by asking, they're being kind.  But in her memoir Say Hello, she points out that despite people's best intentions that's how it feels...

Click here to subscribe to No Filter.

CREDITS:

Host: Mia Freedman 

With thanks to special guest Carly Findlay: https://carlyfindlay.com.au/ 

Buy her memoir, Say Hello, here: https://www.booktopia.com.au/say-hello-carly-findlay/prod9781460755037.html 

Follow her on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/carlyfindlay/?hl=en 

Producer: Elissa Ratliff

GET IN TOUCH:

Call the PodPhone on 02 8999 9386.

Email the show at [email protected]

Find any book mentioned at apple.co/mamamia

No Filter is a podcast by Mamamia. Find more shows here.

 

Become a Mamamia subscriber: https://www.mamamia.com.au/subscribe

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Roxy Jacenko doesn’t like being the centre of attention.

If you are one of her 230,000 Instagram followers, you might find that hard to believe.

But the Sydney businesswoman insists her businesses, selfies and TV appearances aren’t about fame or attention. They’re about money.

This is the second time Mia has spoken to Roxy for No Filter. The first time, Roxy’s husband Oliver Curtis was in jail for insider trading. She’d been diagnosed with breast cancer and her life was... spiraling. And this time? Well, it seems life actually got a lot worse for Roxy before it got better.

She lost a lot of weight. She started taking drugs. She had an affair. And she ended up having a nervous breakdown.

So when all that happens, how do you get your life back on track?

Click here to subscribe to No Filter.

CREDITS:

Host: Mia Freedman 

With thanks to special guest Roxy Jacenko: https://www.instagram.com/roxyjacenko/ 

Buy her new book Penelope's Playground here: https://www.booktopia.com.au/penelope-s-playground-roxy-jacenko/prod9781925695816.html 

Listen to Mia's first interview with Roxy here: https://omny.fm/shows/no-filter/roxy-jacenko-and-the-whole-damn-thing 

Producer: Elissa Ratliff

GET IN TOUCH:

Call the PodPhone on 02 8999 9386.

Email the show at [email protected]

Find any book mentioned at apple.co/mamamia

No Filter is a podcast by Mamamia. Find more shows here.

 

Become a Mamamia subscriber: https://www.mamamia.com.au/subscribe

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If you grew up in the 70s in Australia, you probably look back on that period and smile.

Maybe you think of it as a simpler time or "the good old days."  But were they really?

In his new book, The Land Before Avocado, journalist and broadcaster Richard Glover investigates whether the past really was as great as everyone thinks it was.

As a child of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, Richard takes us on a journey back to a place where every man could afford a house and every woman was known by her husband's name.

Click here to subscribe to No Filter.

CREDITS:

Host: Mia Freedman 

With thanks to special guest Richard Glover

Read his extract on Mamamia here: 

Producer: Elissa Ratliff

GET IN TOUCH:

Call the PodPhone on 02 8999 9386.

Email the show at [email protected]

Find any book mentioned at apple.co/mamamia

No Filter is a podcast by Mamamia. Find more shows here.

This episode was made possible by Lifespace Probiotics

Become a Mamamia subscriber: https://www.mamamia.com.au/subscribe

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When Christine Armstrong, author of The Mother of All Jobs, became a mother it never occurred to her she would have to give up her job. At the time, she was working in London in a high level corporate job. But after the birth of her first daughter, she realised being full-time mum AND a full-time employee was bloody hard.

So, she started looking for answers. She interviewed other working mothers and found, unsurprisingly, that she wasn’t alone.

Christine realised there was a conspiracy of silence from senior women about "having it all". But that it was the system that was broken, not the people in it.

Three daughters, and a few jobs later, her book, The Mother of All Jobs, was born.

And she joins Mia to talk about it now...

Click here to subscribe to No Filter.

CREDITS:

Host: Mia Freedman 

With thanks to special guest Christine Armstrong

Producer: Elissa Ratliff

GET IN TOUCH:

Call the PodPhone on 02 8999 9386.

Email the show at [email protected]

Find any book mentioned at apple.co/mamamia

No Filter is a podcast by Mamamia. Find more shows here.

This episode was made possible by Lifespace Probiotics

Become a Mamamia subscriber: https://www.mamamia.com.au/subscribe

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mia Freedman is bringing you a special episode of No Filter this week because our Executive Editor Leigh Campbell has some news...

Leigh has been a high profile journalist for more than a decade. She’s worked at Cosmopolitan Magazine, Huffington Post and Mamamia. She has a huge following on Instagram and is the host of the You Beauty podcast.  But if you've been following Leigh on social media you probably know all that.

What you might not know is what's been happening behind the scenes of her Instagram feed. 

A couple of months ago, Leigh decided to go public with her story and that’s when things got really surprising, especially for her.

Click here to subscribe to No Filter.

MORE INFORMATION

If you or anyone you know has been through pregnancy loss or infertility, we see you.

So many women have walked this path and at Mamamia we are determined to provide as many helpful resources as possible to help you navigate the emotional, physical, financial and mental strain that infertility, pregnancy loss, stillbirth or the loss of a baby brings into your life.

We understand and we know that reading words that are the same shape as your wounds doesn’t take them away but it can be like applying balm. It can help to heal and to comfort you. And to help others who may feel helpless watching your pain, better understand what you’re going through.

If this sounds like you, or a friend, please join our Never Forgotten Facebook group here or find helpful articles and the Never Forgotten book here. 

https://www.mamamia.com.au/tag/never-forgotten/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/mamamianeverforgotten/ 

CREDITS:

Host: Mia Freedman 

With thanks to special guest Leigh Campbell.

If you want to hear more from Leigh, subscribe to You Beauty here. 

Producer: Elissa Ratliff

GET IN TOUCH:

Call the PodPhone on 02 8999 9386.

Email the show at [email protected]

Find any book mentioned at apple.co/mamamia

No Filter is a podcast by Mamamia. Find more shows here.

 

Become a Mamamia subscriber: https://www.mamamia.com.au/subscribe

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You might remember William McInnes from Seachange, or Blue Heelers, but what you may not know about him is that he can really tell a story. He’s been doing it for the past 30 years, first as an actor and later as a writer.

William has written over 11 books. A lot of them, around the themes of growing up in Australia.  And his latest, Fatherhood, is a personal tribute to Aussie dads everywhere.

Mia’s conversation with William was a rollercoaster. One minute they were laughing uncontrollably, the next they were crying. William lost the love of his life, his wife Sarah in 2011. He raised their two children, Clem, and Stella by himself. He knows hardship and he isn’t afraid to share what he’s learned or get honest about his feelings. 

This interview isn’t about grief or loss, it’s about a man doing the best he can for his family.

Click here to subscribe to No Filter.

CREDITS:

Host: Mia Freedman 

With thanks to special guest William McInnes, find his book Fatherhood at apple.co/mamamia

Producer: Elissa Ratliff

GET IN TOUCH:

Call the PodPhone on 02 8999 9386.

Email the show at [email protected]

Find any book mentioned at apple.co/mamamia

No Filter is a podcast by Mamamia. Find more shows here.

This episode was made possible by Lifespace Probiotics

Become a Mamamia subscriber: https://www.mamamia.com.au/subscribe

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.