# How to Stop Wishing Parenting Away

An episode of [Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1082244480), 26 Jul 2026, 10 min.

Audio: https://mgln.ai/e/187/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/fa326977-3de5-4283-9b8b-af3500c58607/b69b2795-5503-4de1-ac91-af460017906e/1dc87fa2-0ffa-4bc1-817b-b488003d4b11/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=a05f1702-0c0e-4b0f-8014-af460017907c

What if the moment you're desperate to get through today becomes the one you'd give anything to have back? Brushing tangled hair. Carrying a sleeping child inside. Sitting through one more song. These moments can feel frustrating when you're tired and running late. Then one day they stop happening, and you never realise the last time has already passed. In this episode, Dr Justin Coulson shares a simple idea from philosophy called the "Last Time Meditation." It will change the way you see everyday parenting and help you notice the moments that matter before they're gone. KEY POINTS • Why the everyday parenting jobs you dread can become your most treasured memories. • How the "Last Time Meditation" helps you stay present. • The psychology behind appreciating ordinary moments before they disappear. • The personal experience that changed how Justin responds to his children. • One simple habit that makes family life feel richer without changing your routine. QUOTE OF THE EPISODE "There's something you did with your child today that ten years from now you'd trade almost anything to do again. You just don't know what that thing is." RESOURCES MENTIONED • A Guide to the Good Life by William B. Irvine • William B. Irvine's "Last Time Meditation" • Stoic philosophy • Seneca • Epictetus • The Japanese concept Ichi-go Ichi-e • Fred Bryant's research on savouring • Tim Urban's "Tail End" concept • Kurtz (2008), Psychological Science ACTION STEPS FOR PARENTS • Pick one ordinary family moment this week and treat it like it won't happen again. • The next time your child asks you to watch, listen or help, stop and give them your full attention. • Put your phone away during one family ritual each day. • Slow down long enough to notice the moments you'll miss one day. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:05] Speaker 1: Hello, Welcome to the Happy Family Podcast. Here's the scenario.
[0:08] Speaker 1: You are brushing your daughter's hair. It's got knots. She's
[0:12] Speaker 1: winging and complaining and saying it hurts. You're running late.
[0:16] Speaker 1: You don't really have time for this. If she'd just
[0:18] Speaker 1: done as she was asked, you wouldn't be in this situation,
[0:21] Speaker 1: and you're really really frustrated. I've been there. In fact,
[0:26] Speaker 1: I can't tell you the last time that I had
[0:27] Speaker 1: the blessing, the privilege, the joy, the joy of brushing
[0:32] Speaker 1: my daughter's hair. I can't tell you what I'd do
[0:35] Speaker 1: to be able to do it all over again Today.
[0:39] Speaker 1: A two minute idea from a philosophy professor that might
[0:42] Speaker 1: change how you experience the next ten years of parenting.
[0:47] Speaker 1: Stay with us. That's next. Hello and welcome to the
[0:52] Speaker 1: Happy Family Podcast. Real parenting solutions every single day. This
[0:55] Speaker 1: is Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast. My name's docor Justin Causon.
[0:59] Speaker 1: Normally I'm joined by my wife, missus Happy Families, Mum
[1:02] Speaker 1: to our six daughters. She couldn't make it today. Sometimes
[1:05] Speaker 1: life's a bit like that. It gets complicated, it gets
[1:07] Speaker 1: a little bit well taxing. Sometimes on my own and
[1:12] Speaker 1: today is one of those days. However, the show goes on,
[1:14] Speaker 1: and what that usually means is that with Kylie not
[1:17] Speaker 1: interrupting me, I get to say everything that I want
[1:19] Speaker 1: to say, but I get to say it faster. So
[1:22] Speaker 1: today a nice short one, an idea that works, wonders
[1:27] Speaker 1: and may just change how happy your family is. So
[1:32] Speaker 1: let's go back to a guy called William b Irvine.
[1:34] Speaker 1: Bill Irvine wrote a book called A Guide to the
[1:36] Speaker 1: Good Life, and in that book he talked about something
[1:39] Speaker 1: called the last time meditation. Basically, it's this, whatever you're doing,
[1:44] Speaker 1: this might be the last time you do it. Think
[1:46] Speaker 1: about that for a second. All of those parenting tasks
[1:49] Speaker 1: that drive you crazy, the last time you carry a
[1:52] Speaker 1: sleeping child from the car, maybe the last shoulder right,
[1:57] Speaker 1: the last time that a small hand grabs your as
[2:00] Speaker 1: you cross the road. Maybe even the last time that
[2:04] Speaker 1: they come and lay down on the bed beside you
[2:05] Speaker 1: and say, I just wanted to hug before I go
[2:07] Speaker 1: to sleep. And here's the great challenge about life. Nobody
[2:12] Speaker 1: tells you that it's the last time. The last time happens,
[2:17] Speaker 1: you don't know it, and then it never happens again. Now,
[2:21] Speaker 1: sometimes sometimes that last time is something that you're actively
[2:25] Speaker 1: praying for. I'm really looking forward to the last time
[2:28] Speaker 1: that I walk into the kitchen and find twelve plates
[2:30] Speaker 1: that have been dumped there by children who, well, at
[2:32] Speaker 1: least they took them to the kitchen, but they haven't
[2:35] Speaker 1: bothered to do the rinsing. They haven't stacked them, they
[2:37] Speaker 1: haven't gotten them organized, do you know what I mean?
[2:40] Speaker 1: Like the last nappy, I don't mind that I'm never
[2:42] Speaker 1: going to change a nappy again for the rest of
[2:44] Speaker 1: my life, at least fingers crossed. Hopefully I'm not going
[2:46] Speaker 1: to have to. I don't mind that I don't tread
[2:49] Speaker 1: on lego in the middle of the night that's been
[2:51] Speaker 1: left on the floor. That kind of makes me feel
[2:53] Speaker 1: pretty good. But there's actually some really nice philosophical roots
[2:58] Speaker 1: to this idea of the last time that if you
[3:00] Speaker 1: have a look at ancient Stoicism, there's something called negative visualization.
[3:04] Speaker 1: Seneca you might have heard of Seneca, Epictetus. What they
[3:07] Speaker 1: taught was that if you can imagine losing something, it
[3:11] Speaker 1: sharpens your appreciation of it. In fact, epictetis this is
[3:15] Speaker 1: kind of brutal. That Epictetus even said to remind yourself
[3:18] Speaker 1: as you kiss your child good night that they're mortal.
[3:21] Speaker 1: The logic holds here, right, Maybe you don't want to
[3:23] Speaker 1: imagine it's your child. Maybe you want to imagine for
[3:25] Speaker 1: you that you are mortal, and this could be. It's
[3:29] Speaker 1: kind of hard to say. It makes me a bit
[3:30] Speaker 1: sad to say it, but it changes the way that
[3:32] Speaker 1: you engage in the moment. There's a parallel thread in
[3:37] Speaker 1: Japanese culture. My brother spent some time in Japan, and
[3:40] Speaker 1: I don't think that I'm going to say this correctly,
[3:42] Speaker 1: but it's called it go itchy One time one meeting
[3:46] Speaker 1: comes from the tea ceremony tradition, and what they're basically
[3:49] Speaker 1: saying is every gathering is unrepeatable, like we're here and
[3:53] Speaker 1: this moment matters, but we won't get this moment back.
[3:57] Speaker 1: Even if we're all together again, we're going to be different.
[4:00] Speaker 1: The moment's going to be different, everything all changed. I
[4:03] Speaker 1: think it's also why the Japanese fuss over cherry blossoms
[4:05] Speaker 1: because they only last such a short time, like a
[4:07] Speaker 1: week or thereabouts. So the last time meditation builds on
[4:14] Speaker 1: the psychology that we call adaptation. Adaptation basically means that
[4:20] Speaker 1: you become habituated to something like you walk into the house,
[4:23] Speaker 1: you see the kids there, and you just take them
[4:25] Speaker 1: for granted because they are the wallpaper of your life.
[4:28] Speaker 1: You stop noticing. Back in two thousand and eight, a
[4:32] Speaker 1: researcher by the name of Kurtz published their paper in
[4:34] Speaker 1: Psychological Science. Here's what they did. UNI students were told
[4:38] Speaker 1: to imagine that graduation was six weeks away, and they
[4:43] Speaker 1: were found to savor life on campus more. They became
[4:47] Speaker 1: measurably happier than those who were told that graduation was
[4:50] Speaker 1: going to be a couple of years away. Basically, this
[4:53] Speaker 1: comes down to the following. It's about perceived scarcity and
[4:56] Speaker 1: what it does is that switches savoring on. There's a
[5:01] Speaker 1: researcher by the name of Fred Bryant, and he talks
[5:03] Speaker 1: about how we can savor what's happened, and we can
[5:05] Speaker 1: also save the future, or we can savor right now.
[5:08] Speaker 1: This is what I'm talking about. It's the right now moment.
[5:11] Speaker 1: You might have heard of a guy called Tim Urban.
[5:13] Speaker 1: He has a website called Wait but Why. It's all
[5:15] Speaker 1: about curiosity and he invented this concept. Invented he described
[5:20] Speaker 1: this idea. He calls it the tail end scary istat
[5:23] Speaker 1: ready for this. By the time your child finished the school,
[5:26] Speaker 1: you've used roughly ninety something percent of the total in
[5:30] Speaker 1: person time you're ever going to have with them. And
[5:33] Speaker 1: then the remainder kind of gets rationed into visits because
[5:36] Speaker 1: they move out of home, you just don't get the
[5:38] Speaker 1: time anymore. So after the break, the Last Time Meditation,
[5:43] Speaker 1: how it actually played out at our place last week,
[5:46] Speaker 1: and why it matters in your place today, Say what
[5:49] Speaker 1: it's We're back. It's the Happy Families podcast. I'm saying,
[6:00] Speaker 1: but it's me. I feel a little lonely without Missappy
[6:02] Speaker 1: Families today. Fingers crossed, She's back tomorrow. I' feeling a
[6:04] Speaker 1: little bit better. Last week, my twenty two year old
[6:09] Speaker 1: daughter walked into the bedroom holding her guitar and she said, Hey, Dad,
[6:12] Speaker 1: I've been practicing a song. Can I play it to you?
[6:14] Speaker 1: I want to sing you a song. And if I'm
[6:17] Speaker 1: perfectly honest, even though I'm the parenting expert and I'm
[6:19] Speaker 1: having this conversation with you, the reason that I'm doing
[6:21] Speaker 1: this Last Time Meditation podcast conversation with you today is
[6:24] Speaker 1: because I didn't treat it like it was the last time,
[6:27] Speaker 1: at least not initially. I was kind of annoyed because
[6:29] Speaker 1: I was rushed, as is so often the case. There
[6:32] Speaker 1: were other things that I needed to be doing, and
[6:34] Speaker 1: I've heard of sing songs lots, so I just wasn't
[6:36] Speaker 1: that roped in by it. And I said, not now,
[6:40] Speaker 1: I haven't really got time. And then I remembered the
[6:42] Speaker 1: last time Meditation. I said, you know what, because this
[6:44] Speaker 1: could be the last song. I didn't say that out loud,
[6:46] Speaker 1: but I thought this could be the last time. I'm
[6:47] Speaker 1: so glad she's actually still with this. It wasn't the
[6:49] Speaker 1: last time, but I thought this could be the last time.
[6:52] Speaker 1: What if something happens to me, what if something happens
[6:54] Speaker 1: to her? So I sat down with her. I said,
[6:57] Speaker 1: I'd love to hear you play. And she sat down
[6:59] Speaker 1: and she said me two songs, and I didn't want
[7:02] Speaker 1: it to end. It was beautiful. So the Last Time
[7:06] Speaker 1: Meditation is not about grief, and it's not about morbidity.
[7:08] Speaker 1: It's not about mortality, it's not about life is over.
[7:12] Speaker 1: It's actually about just stepping into the moment. It's about
[7:16] Speaker 1: just being there. I haven't talked about this on the
[7:19] Speaker 1: podcast in any detail, but a few weeks ago, I
[7:22] Speaker 1: was riding my bike and I came off. I don't
[7:26] Speaker 1: know what happened because I passed out. I was unconscious
[7:30] Speaker 1: when I came off the bike. I was doing seventy
[7:31] Speaker 1: k's an hour. And that's really been on my mind
[7:34] Speaker 1: a lot for the last few weeks. When my children
[7:36] Speaker 1: ask if they can talk to me, do something annoying me,
[7:39] Speaker 1: whatever it is, or if I get to interact with them,
[7:41] Speaker 1: because it could so easily be the last time. That
[7:47] Speaker 1: car that wasn't on the road, it could have been
[7:49] Speaker 1: coming towards me, It could have been the last time.
[7:52] Speaker 1: So I just wanted to share that idea with you today.
[7:55] Speaker 1: The last time meditation, It brings you into the moment more.
[7:58] Speaker 1: It helps you to sit there and really really be
[8:03] Speaker 1: there for your family, experience family life differently. If your
[8:07] Speaker 1: children are bothering you, it might be the last time,
[8:10] Speaker 1: So how would you react differently this time? Here's what
[8:13] Speaker 1: I want you to do. Here's my practical takeaway for
[8:15] Speaker 1: this podcast today. For this week, pick one ordinary ritual
[8:20] Speaker 1: this week or one ordinary moment. Maybe it's bad time
[8:23] Speaker 1: if the kids are young, Maybe it's school drop off,
[8:25] Speaker 1: if you drive them to school. Maybe the kids ride
[8:28] Speaker 1: their bikes or scooters to school, but you usually just
[8:31] Speaker 1: watch them as they go out the door and say
[8:32] Speaker 1: see you later. Maybe you might do it differently, if
[8:36] Speaker 1: you did it like it's the last time. Maybe you
[8:38] Speaker 1: might walk all the way to the front gate and
[8:39] Speaker 1: watch them go down the street. Maybe the bedtime story
[8:42] Speaker 1: if it was the last one. When your child interrupts
[8:47] Speaker 1: you with an invitation to watch this or listen to
[8:50] Speaker 1: this or whatever, just remember this could be the last time.
[8:54] Speaker 1: Don't say it out loud. Just notice. So here's the thing.
[8:59] Speaker 1: My daughter don't ask me to brush their hair anymore.
[9:02] Speaker 1: I can't comb the knots out of their hair anymore.
[9:04] Speaker 1: They're not interested in me doing it. And it would
[9:07] Speaker 1: kind of be weird for me to sit down and
[9:08] Speaker 1: do that with my twenty two year old daughter, because
[9:10] Speaker 1: number one, she doesn't need help, But number two, I
[9:12] Speaker 1: don't know. I reckon, there's something that you did this morning,
[9:15] Speaker 1: something that I did this morning in relation to our
[9:18] Speaker 1: most important people in our lives, and we did it
[9:20] Speaker 1: on autopilot that ten years from now you'd trade almost
[9:25] Speaker 1: anything to do again. You just don't know what that
[9:29] Speaker 1: thing is. And that's the whole point, do it like
[9:33] Speaker 1: it's the last time and see how it changes your experience.
[9:38] Speaker 1: The Happy Famili's podcast will be back tomorrow with a
[9:41] Speaker 1: whole lot more, including what do you do when your
[9:43] Speaker 1: twelve year old daughter receives content online that is disturbing, violent,
[9:49] Speaker 1: or even sexualized? Plus how can we lift our energy
[9:53] Speaker 1: and build a stronger energy game Those conversations add more
[9:57] Speaker 1: coming up on the Happy Families podcast this week make
[10:00] Speaker 1: should you catch every episode they drop every morning in
[10:03] Speaker 1: your feed. The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin
[10:06] Speaker 1: Rulant from Bridge Media. Mim Hammonds provides our admin and
[10:09] Speaker 1: other support, and for more infoto make your family happier,
[10:12] Speaker 1: visit us at happy families dot com dot au.

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