Lucinda Holdforth

And then you looked at their houses, no books, no music.

LAUGHTER

no television sometimes.

And this little, you know, retrograde fantasy of we're all going to live some version of that.

And actually, I found it very patronising.

And there's stuff in there that's good and sensible.

But I felt that if someone told me I needed to live a blue zone life, I would rather run for the final exit.

Poverty is not a picnic for most people who are living it.

Poverty is not a picnic.

And to glorify that in that strange way seemed to be very, well, it seemed very American to me, I have to say, which may sound racist, but there you are.

It's the daughters.

It's the good daughter or the good daughters.

And that's not just an Australian phenomenon.

In America, Atul Gawande said, if you want to be comfortable in your old age, you need at least one daughter.

Another one said 85% of caregiving is done by women.

So that's the statistics.

And I've seen that here as well.

And they're known as the sandwich generation for a reason.

And it's really interesting because

This voluntary loving caregiving comes at a price and that price is the mental toll, the physical toll, the stress for women who might be going through menopause, as I said, bringing up their kids, trying to work.