Playful Parenting with Joe Brumm

Lukas: Our next guest is award-winning animator, Queensland local, and father of two. His popular cartoon featuring a family of heeler dogs does an extraordinary job at capturing the day-to-day challenges and joys of parenting through a playful, validating, and accessible animation for the entire family. Today we're talking about playful parenting, our own childhood versus a modern childhood experience, and addressing parental challenges. I'm of course talking about the creator of Bluey and many other animations — very talented Joe Brumm. Thanks so much for joining us.

Joe: How's it going? Good, good. Firstly, thanks for Bluey on behalf of my family. My Father's Day gift consisted of "My Dad's Awesome" book which is a Bluey book of course. And I only just recently realised through researching for this podcast where my son got the phrase "for real life" from!

Lukas: No worries! Yeah, well I often wondered whether that was my kids that made that up or whether that pre-existed, but yeah, makes me laugh.

Joe: Absolutely. And you've done such a good job. Obviously you've got a background in animation — just give us a bit of context how it came to be before we get into the episodes and parenting.

Joe: Yeah no worries. I studied — I always wanted to do something with drawing, I love drawing. And then when I left high school I did an animation course for three or four years and mainly did 2D animation. This was back when we did it on paper. And then sort of had a job locked in for the first two or three years straight afterwards where it was one of the very few jobs where you just got to do hand-drawn animation. And it was on that job that I really sort of learnt, you know, just improved my animation. And then sort of started moving into Flash and cut-out stuff done on computer, and then moved to London and spent 10 years working in children's TV more or less. And that sort of set the stage for what would be to come with Bluey.

Lukas: We have met in the past and I was lucky to hear you talk at the Childhood Summit from Australian Institute of Play. You mentioned about moving past how childhood is presented — and you highlighted your observation around childhood being presented in this milestone format. It's like "hey go to school, ride a bike." Can you expand on your theory about that?

Joe: Yeah, like I think what I wanted to do with the show was move into a lot of the smaller little idiosyncratic moments that I was witnessing while raising my daughters. So riding the bike and all those sort of big events are well and good, and we definitely put them into episodes. It was all the little weird games, the weird moments that I knew would kind of fade away in time, that I wanted to capture. Because they seemed to me like they were just as important and just as entertaining, I guess, to my kids.

And yeah, so it was very much a product of being there in the wild with my kids that I could witness these little games that we would play. And then they became the stuff of Bluey. And I think that's probably why a lot of parents and kids relate to it — because whilst the games change a little bit, the nature of the games are common to their kids.

Lukas: And what do you think's that underlying thread of what makes those experiences memorable?

Joe: Well, in terms of memorable — I mean, they're not memorable in the sense that, you know, a game of Magic Xylophone we might play for a week and then I don't think when the kids are 20 and they recall the games they used to play, I don't think that one would stick in their memory. But at the time it's a very engrossing game and it's very definitely very memorable at the time.

And I think what that is, is what I've been trying to figure out — there's some structure to the games that kids would play with themselves, with their friends, with their siblings, and with the parents. And that's sort of what I've slowly been learning as I have been making Bluey and studying more about play — like what are the structures of kids' games. And yeah, that's what I find fascinating.

Lukas: Obviously you're doing children's animation before you had children. So what ignited that spark of interest and passion in play?

Joe: Yeah, well, a very specific incident really. When my daughter went to — she started prep in the sort of local state school — and she used to play a lot and withdraw a lot. And I think when she started prep we just noticed over the period of the year it just wasn't working out for her. She just sort of being inside for so long didn't seem like that was the natural place which she was ready for, you know, compared to the year previous when she was in kindergarten.

So I started looking into it more and more, and it just seemed as though the academic learning had supplanted a lot of the time and the space that in the previous year of kindergarten the kids would be engaged in role play and different games and stuff and exercise and movement.

And so that — I kind of then, when we sorted out the situation and my kids started to thrive again — it got me thinking, well what is it about this play that when it was taken away had such a dramatic effect? And that's when I started sort of reading whatever I could and kind of figuring out — well look, you know, I mean nothing you don't know obviously — but it was all new to me.

And it's like, that is this stage that they're at where play is a really good vehicle for them learning to move out of toddlerhood and into a social setting. And it's a very important step in a kid's life as far as I can tell, because it's when they're first learning the social rules and they're mastering their own temperament. They're leaving behind that self-centeredness of the toddler period and they're learning to cooperate with at least one other player so that they can get a game going that recreates real life — which seems to be what they always want to do. They want to recreate what they're seeing in the adult world, and that invariably involves more than just themselves. It's a social setting — usually cafe or trains or shops.

So that was it. It made sense to me after that. It's like, yeah, that's an important phase and play is a really good vehicle for the graduation of that phase. And if you bring in something else like academic learning and remove the ability to play, then it's not going to be great for what the little human body needs at that time.

Lukas: And how does your childhood look like compared to your children's childhood experience? Because my observation is you capture so well and acknowledge this nostalgia around the past and the 80s. If you need to watch that episode — the "80s" episode with my children — do yourself a favour. It's brilliant. But you capture nostalgia so well, but then also you capture the modern childhood so well, equally. Is that something you set out to do?

Joe: No, I rarely looked back to my childhood. What I set out to do was to not look back to the hazy memories of my childhood but to just look at what was going on with my own kids. Because there's so much pressure and I was — you know, I think when you're your own childhood you're inside looking out. Completely different mind state.

And there's an episode, Rug Island, which was just my attempt to reconcile that. But it's like, you're in a completely different state of consciousness as a kid. And when you leave it and become an adult, it's hard to get back there, right?

So no, I have very fond memories of childhood, and especially I've got quite a few from under five, you know. But they're too hazy, not clear or concise enough to have written any like a Bluey episode about. But then when it came time to do the episode you're talking about — the Fairy Tale episode — that was just my little stab at how I remembered the 80s. And that was a lot of fun, just the comparison of how we were raised.

But I think the fundamental core of how I was raised and how I'm raising my kids, I don't think has changed that much. But a hell of a lot of the style and the superficialities are different.

Lukas: How do you feel about this situation you find yourself in as Bluey is now the pinup boy for good parenting — and Chilli equally? How do you feel about that pressure, if you will?

Joe: Well, I don't know. I think it's kind of like — you raise your own kids, you know. TV is there to entertain, even school is there to teach them. But you raise your own kids. And Bluey, I think, can be considered as just one more parenting book on your shelf that you either love for a certain time and then maybe you ignore.

If I think about probably the best thing about Bluey — even if you don't agree with what Chilli and Bandit do — I find even if I pick up a parenting book and I used to read a lot of them, and I start reading it, even if I say "this book isn't for me," I've found just the very act of reading a book about trying to be a really good parent has the effect for me of just going "yeah, you know what, like being a dad's a job and this person's written a book about how to do it really well. It is something worth doing well."

And just the act of reading that book, even if I don't learn anything or agree with it, often would put me in a frame of mind of "yeah, I'm going to be a bit more conscious about this and try to do this well." And I hope maybe Bluey at its very least — you don't have to agree with anything they do — but it is a show that says "yeah, parenting is an important, very important thing, and this is two parents who are trying to put their whole heart into it."

Lukas: 100%. And I think the other side of that is doing it playfully. Yes, it is serious. Yes, it is a lot of responsibility. There's no handbook or directions that come with your child. But also I think the way you present it in such a fun playful way makes it accessible.

Joe: Yeah. I would say play is at the heart of Bluey and it's at the heart of Bluey because it seemed to be at the heart of what my kids wanted to do all the time. So if there is a situation where, like in Fruit Bat, where you can maybe motivate your kid by taking on a playful attitude and you've got the energy for that, then that's often a good outcome for everyone. It's not always possible obviously, but yeah, I feel like that's what I always tried to do with my kids because it just — it often would still get what I wanted done, done. And it was just a lighter way to approach life. A lighter way to approach quite an arduous task, which is parenting.

Lukas: I wanted to talk about some episodes specifically. One of the top ones for me is "The Creek." I think you've just done a fantastic job depicting that wonder of nature play. Can you give us a bit of a highlight of where that came from or what inspired it?

Joe: It was one of the very first episodes that I wrote. The Creek was probably number five. And it was right when I was really reading up on play. And creeks were a massive part of — I guess that was one where I was thinking about childhood a bit, because I did grow up in creeks, you know, catching yabbies and stuff up in Cairns.

And every time we would take our kids down to the creek, they would love it. They would come alive. And we could spend hours down there. So obviously, you know, I knew something pretty universal.

And so that was what I typically will do — I would start reading. And then I was like, okay, well what is it about playing in nature? And I just read quite a lot of articles which were, I guess, contrasting — which sort of got a lot into brain science and how the brain, what it learns and how it operates when it's in a natural environment as opposed to a man-made environment.

And one of the articles I think was using playgrounds as comparison. And it was saying, you know, playgrounds have even surfaces whereas when you're in nature you've got an uneven surface, and just the calculations that your brain needs to do just with footwork are completely different. And it's good for you, you know.

But the core of that episode was that in a playground, you generally know what — the playground equipment tells the kid what you need to do with it to a large extent. Seesaw is pretty much like "yep, get on there, sit on that and then do this." Swing — "get on this, do that." Whereas in nature — and Bluey, when she gets down there, she overcomes all these obstacles, the spider web and all this — but her final obstacle is she asks Dad, "Well, so what are we supposed to play?" Because she's in an environment where the environment isn't telling them what to play.

And that's her final hurdle. Dad's just like "yeah, I don't know, you just sort of muck around." And that's enough for the last straw to fall away and it's like "all right, I bring myself to this environment." And that was an interesting idea I thought. And it is true.

Lukas: In Australia we do suffer from what is referred to as "play bias" — like the traditional "climb here, walk here, slide here." They call it play bias, and it's a loading of an area with one type of play that has the effect of excluding the child from play.

Joe: That's interesting.

Lukas: So like a playground sticks to just slide, climbing. You can see when you look at it — the number one time spent in a traditional park is actually transitioning through the environment. It's just wide enough to move past each other. It's not like you're climbing up an area to engage socially up there because there's not enough room — because you're just running through it. You're going up the ladder or up the climbing wall or up the rope — they're all just transition, transition, transition.

And where the true play value comes is when you can have that extended social interaction, because the longer the play frame, the more the social interaction, the more opportunity for the learning for the child. And parks just don't lend themselves to that.

Joe: Oh, that's fascinating. And you tend to see it, don't you — there's no room to get up there and chat or form a little social game. It's like "get out of the way."

Lukas: What's your personal strategy to overcome screen time with your kids?

Joe: Look, every time you say this, half the parents are gonna be relieved and half the parents are gonna be all judgey. But we try during school terms to just restrict them to the weekend. And to be fair, they then make up for it on the weekend! But yeah, and just proximity from the eyes, I keep worrying about that.

But yeah, look, there's just a general vibe of "okay, let's get off that thing now." And school holidays is a bit of a free-for-all. But yeah, it's just — I don't know, like I just always love it when I come home and the kids have made something with their hands, or drawn something.

I do think there's really good games, and video games have got — I think, I mean, there's some of my fondest memories are playing with my brothers and mates. And I've made a living out of that world, to a certain extent. So I want them to play the best games that humans have made. But I want them to also have a balanced life and get out, you know.

I don't think it's anything too different to most parents these days. It's just games are good now. Like, they were great when we were kids, but they weren't intensely worked on and multiplayer and as good as Minecraft. Like, have you played Minecraft? My god, it's just the game of the century. Like, I would have been glued to that thing as a kid. My brothers would have been. So yeah, you've got to contend with that.

Lukas: What does play mean to you?

Joe: Well, I mean, you come across all sorts of definitions in your reading. I always loved that popular one which is "it's the voluntary overcoming of unnecessary obstacles." It's a very nice academic way to look at it.

But yeah, play to me, I guess as an adult now, means going and playing sport — playing touch footy or soccer. And you know, other than playing with my kids. Playing with my kids now has taken on more of — it's a little more like jazz now, I guess is the best way to understand it. Whereas they don't want to play an organised game like they used to, like cafe "I'm the customer" or anything like that. They just want me to grab them and tickle them and squeeze their legs and yank them this way and just roughhouse with them. That seems to be what I've been doing for the last year.

But in terms of play for me — yeah, it's playing soccer or touch footy. And I know it's important for me because it's a completely different world that I enter when I walk onto the field. And these are just muck-around games with mates and stuff. But I just love the immediacy of it. I love it. It's just — you're just in the moment a lot more.

And maybe that's a bit — that's how kids feel when they play. I forget as a kid to a large extent what it felt like. But I do know that when I step onto a field now or go for a surf or something, it does feel like it's just a whole different mind state. And to a certain extent, when I'm writing something, you do play with ideas and play with different storylines and stuff.

Yeah, it's just anything where I put the kind of serious part of my brain on hold and just forget about outcomes in a creative sense. Definitely on the field, forgetting about it. But yeah, that's what play means for me now as an adult.

Lukas: Thank you so much for joining us today. Thanks for contributing to my kids, my family. For a guy that designs playgrounds and thinks about play all the time, to see parenting demonstrated in such a playful way is just so refreshing and so relatable. So thanks for the hard work, thanks for being vulnerable and sharing your experiences with the world.

Joe: My pleasure, Lukas. That's all good. Thanks for having me on.

Lukas: Thank you.