‘We Are So F-ed Up’: The True Cost Of Caring For A Complicated Parent.
The perplexing reality when you become the parent of your parents. Holly has some feedback for the Royal Family about Meghan. And the problem with the sea of thin bodies on the 2025 red carpets.
Caroline and her mum. Caroline sat down with Holly this week on MID to talk about the complicated reality of caring for ageing parents.
Caroline Baum never thought the mechanical whirr of a chair would become a triggering sound. But for the writer and broadcaster, it became the soundtrack to a daily disruption that was slowly corroding her sanity.
Caroline's mother, who is now 96, didn't have an easy life. Orphaned, for all intents and purposes, at age five due to a domestic violence incident, she entered a volatile foster system that left her feeling abandoned and unloved.
"I've heard since from psychologists that, at five, that's quite an important age in terms of child development," Caroline told the host of Mamamia's MID podcast, Holly Wainwright, when the pair sat down to talk about the complicated reality of caring for ageing parents — a reality that defies neat narratives of gratitude and duty, revealing instead the messy human truths of resentment, love, obligation and guilt.
"If something earth-shattering happens to you, one of your survival techniques can be to build a carapace around yourself in order to survive, where everything becomes entirely and only about you. That is the beginnings of narcissism."
Years later, Caroline has certainly noticed traits of narcissism within her mother. But the writer didn't realise how bad things would get when she and her husband agreed to house the then-90-year-old.
"My mother... wanted to live with us in our house and pay for us to build a second story on the house," Caroline said. But what seemed like a reasonable arrangement quickly unravelled.
"I thought, 'Well, there's a kitchenette up there. She's going to make herself most meals and come down maybe for dinner two or three times a week.' But no, that's not what happened."
Instead, her mother came downstairs for lunch every day and dinner every night. And lunch wasn't a casual meal grabbed on the go for Caroline's French mother. It was "a non-negotiable. You stop your day, whatever you're doing, and you have lunch, and it's two courses... a main dish, and there'd have to be dessert."
The daily routine became a growing source of resentment.
"It got so bad that the sound of the stair chair coming down, the mechanical whir of the chair, became a trigger for me. I started to feel physically sick when I heard that chair moving," Caroline shared.
As tensions mounted, Caroline suggested they try family therapy together — a suggestion she was surprised that her mother accepted.
"I remember walking into [the therapist's office] and thinking, 'We are going to eat you for breakfast. We are so f**ked up," Caroline recalled of their first session…
🎧 Follow below to listen to MID: The perplexing and often contradictory realities of what it means to care for our parents in their elder years.
Read and listen to more
READ: The sandwich generations guide to discuss ageing parents
LISTEN: ‘When Your Children Aren't Children’ with Andrew Daddo on MID
READ: 'The hardest parts we don't talk about when our parents get older.’
HOLLY: Meghan Markle's show proves the royal family missed a trick.
Did they jump or were they pushed?
Five whole years since Harry and Meghan Sussex "stepped back" from royal duties, it's still a contested truth.
The "proper" royals, over in stuffy old England in their castles and manors, insist they tried to negotiate with a distraught Harry about staying in the fold, back in January 2020. Harry, in his book Spare, said that he and Meghan gave the old guard (including Queen Granny and his now King Dad) plenty of chances to get their crowned heads around a modern, less restrictive model of Prince and Princesses.
Maybe they could live in South Africa, and carry out duties from there? Maybe Canada? Maybe they could, I don't know, live in California, in a beautiful big house and be allowed to make their own money but still be royal-ish, spreading the word and doing good works?
We all know what happened to those ideas. Nope. Nup. Absolutely not.
And look what happened. A family estranged. Bonded brothers no longer talking. Several mighty media lawsuits, a huge row over who pays for bodyguards and accusations of racist royals being broadcast via Oprah.
And yet, five years on. Harry and Meghan Sussex live in a beautiful big house in California. Make plenty of their own money. Travel the world. Do good work. And are still a Duke and a Duchess, parents to a little Prince and a little Princess. A little more, perhaps, than royal-ish.
This week's debut of With Love, Meghan illustrates — in glorious neutral tones, scented with lavender and beeswax — what the royal family lost when Harry and Meghan decamped: Possibly the most perfect princess who ever there was.
The Netflix show, which surely I don't have to explain to you at this point, is a lifestyle offering. Meghan Sussex cooks and crafts and prunes and picks in a house that isn't hers, and a garden that is. She talks to guests, but not about anything very revelatory or important, and she's beautiful and groomed and pleasant and polished. She doesn't embarrass, or overshare. She doesn't chew with her mouth open. She doesn't reveal state secrets, or accidently display Harry's bong. She presents as an involved mother, a besotted wife, a fashion-plate with a social conscience. And someone who understands being looked at, judged and critiqued. Who's been through the fire of extraordinary scrutiny and decided to keep step back into the camera's eye regardless.
We need to show the people enough, this new version of Meghan seems to understand, to want to be us. But nothing very real. Nothing ugly or opinionated. Nothing raw (except honey) or angry. Nothing scruffy or contentious. Give them a picture of restrained, approachable, bland perfection…
🎧 Follow below to listen to bee voices, bacon bringing boys to the yard and a With Love, Meghan review on Out Loud.
Read and listen to more
READ: Meghan and Harry left the royal family for their kids. This is Archie and Lilibet's life now
LISTEN: Another ‘Urgent Review’ Of Meghan Markle’s New Show on The Spill
READ: The reason the word 'jam' is missing from Meghan’s product range
There are two problems with the sea of thin bodies on the 2025 red carpets. You won’t like either.
This awards season there has been a shift in the images pouring out from red carpets that has been impossible to ignore.
Images filled with bodies that have shrunk and slimmed, noticeably detectable due to the fact that they are owned by famous beings whose every angle is documented ruthlessly via photos and film, making the changes to their bodies even more startling to witness.
Even if you are just a casual observer of awards season antics, it's clear to see that thinness has become more prevalent on red carpets during the 2025 season than publicists glaring at journalists for stepping away from the agreed-upon line of questioning or nude lips paired with a glimmering beige column gown.
Of course, a thin body in Hollywood is no cause for surprise or whiplash. Smaller bodies, in an industry where, no matter what body type, have swung in and out of 'fashion' over the years, have always been the coveted ideal when you live in the city of dreams. Despite what the Instagram algorithms may lead you to believe, the entertainment industry has always maintained a silent but strong stance that 'thin is best'.
But this year, the curtain has slipped a little too much.
This year, the awards season red carpets felt devoid of even Hollywood's basic level of body diversity and many famous women's bodies looked noticeably smaller than they had even a few months prior.
This conversation will always lead to a vocal (and not incorrect) group of people who believe that bodies, particularly the bodies of women who already walk through the world with a heavy level of criticism and expectation placed upon their shoulders, should not be discussed at all.
And yes, one woman's body should never be plastered across the headlines, inviting the masses to jeer at and judge. But in the case of this year's red carpets, the shift in bodies is blinding and when it's a sea of seemingly enforced thin bodies in the industry that most has the power to influence how we think and feel about the world, and our own lives, then we need to have a bigger conversation about it.
Especially because the accusations and speculation around thin bodies have overshadowed the achievements that these awards shows are meant to celebrate.
If you need to be convinced of this fact, take a moment to think about the women whose names have been pulled into these headlines in recent days, accompanied by accusations about why ther bodies look smaller.
The woman who has been in the film industry for decades and was just nominated for her first Oscar, running on a platform built on self-acceptance and self-love.
The woman who is one of the most followed people on Instagram, who has helped so many people by sharing her own mental health struggles, who is now seen as a critically acclaimed actress along with running a billion-dollar business empire…
Read and listen to more
LISTEN: The Wildest Oscars Moment Happened Off Stage on The Spill
READ: How do you sit down in these Oscars dresses? A very serious investigation.
LISTEN: Some Feedback For The Oscars on Out Loud
THE SCROLL 📱
5 things to feed your mind and fill your soul.
1. Let's talk about the Bennifer reunion rumours. No, not that Jen.
2. 'I always shared my family life online. Then a stranger approached my son at the train station.'
3. Help, I’ve lost my gut instinct.
4. Women want to be single, they just can't afford it.
5. 'The day I found out I had two vaginas.'
ICYMI 👀
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MID-SPO STYLE 👗💄
As we are all still freshly a buzz with Oscars fasion (no but really, how did they sit down in some of those capacious dresses?)
We thought it would be timely to take a trip down memory lane and enjoy the Oscars dresses that made history. From the iconic dress Grace Kelly wore in 1955 to Nicole Kidman in that Galliano from 1997.
Please enjoy the revolutionary fashion by TIME. Watch below ⬇️
Our pick of what’s new in beauty and style on Mamamia this week.
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