co-parenting the podcast

Lilly calls in from an Austin hotel room to interview her oldest friend, Shelley, whom she met at a Johnny Rockets in fourth grade. They showed up in the exact same dress, and decades later they did it again with matching coats on a street corner in Paris. Shelley opens up about growing up through her mom’s several marriages, moving out halfway through senior year, and throwing up on her doctor wh...

Homecoming season has hit Texas, and the HOCO Hotline is open. Life is coming at Lilly fast, with curfews, halftime pickups, and some brand new phone rules made up on the spot. Then she and Big Mama get into the whole hoco scene: dresses that are way too much for a 16-year-old, mums you need a forklift to carry, and why every kid should go on at least one awkward real date.

A listener who has spent years being the world's best auntie, school pickup hero, and vacation co-pilot writes in wondering if she's accidentally built a life with no room for romance. Lilly, Big Mama, and Upton dig into the question of how you carve out space for your own love life when family has filled every corner of your calendar, what you actually say to your siblings, and where a 40-year-ol...

Lilly sits down with Audrey Schott, founder of Backyard Music Classes and a trained music therapist, to talk about what it looks like to build a business out of your garage and your backyard. And love for what music does for kids. Audrey traces her path from equotherapy volunteer to UT vocal performance to New York music enrichment centers, and how all of it led her back to Dallas running classes...

Lilly comes back from summer with a story. Steve dumped her. She unpacks what happened, what avoidant attachment actually looks like in practice, and what her anxious attachment looked like right back at him including the cake. (note from the editor: "I hope it was a dump cake") Upton does not hold back. Big Mama chooses her words carefully. The whole thing somehow leads to Super Troopers 3. If yo...

The co-parents are wrapping up summer like we know you are as well. In the meantime, catch up on a favorite episode or send us your questions and guests for season 2 at hello@coparentingpodcast.com.

Lilly brings on an old grade school friend, Mike Jungen, for one of the more wide-ranging conversations the show has had. They start in fifth grade with a jockstrap on the classroom floor and work their way through vintage Broncos, cats, and a friendship with Blake that turned out to be its own kind of family. Mike opens up about growing up, college and a health scare that changed everything, and...

Lilly sits down with Alana O'Connell, founder of Dallas Dance Fitness, to talk about how a retired corporate controller with a dormant dancer inside her built one of the most tightknit fitness communities in Dallas from scratch. Alana walks through the origin story, why team teaching became the model, how she thinks about choreography as a creative practice, and what it actually looks like to...

Lilly and Upton scatter shoot through everything they've been texting about lately. They get into "looks maxing," the trend of guys (and increasingly young girls) asking strangers online how to look more attractive, and what it means that Upton has started using ChatGPT to help with his style and his parenting reflections. From there it turns into a real conversation about sibling es...

It's the end of the school year and Lilly, Big Mama, and Upton take stock of where they're at physically heading into summer. They cover workout routines and injury recovery, creatine, dry brushing, fascia care, saunas, cold plunge, sleep tracking, supplements, and whether your pre-workout is quietly hiding your exhaustion from you. Lilly closes with a summer PSA on body confidence and why...

Lilly sits down with her friend Katie, a producer and director based in Los Angeles, for one of the more honest conversations the show has had. They go back to the beginning: two women in their late 20s orbiting their husbands, shape-shifting their ambitions to fit the terms they had agreed to, and slowly cracking open into something neither of them understood, yet. Find Katie on IG: @katiemaysay...

A listener is planning the chic adult evening wedding she's always wanted and running into a wall: her fiance's family is threatening not to come over a child-free guest policy. Lilly, Upton, and Big Mama dig into whether she should hold her ground, what the family pushback might actually be telling her, and why the bigger red flag might have nothing to do with the kids at all.

Lilly sits down with her friend Paige Chenault, founder of the Birthday Party Project, for a conversation that goes well beyond the nonprofit. Paige traces her path from preacher's kid to events powerhouse to building one of Dallas's most beloved organizations, and talks openly about what it cost her along the way and how COVID became the unlikely catalyst for getting honest about what she...

Lilly has had a week and she needs to talk about it. Two grievances make it to the table: one about kids, boundaries, and what it means to be a guest in someone's home, and one about a dad at a party who said something that sent her. Things expand from there into food talk around children, men's fashion, and whether decorum is a lost cause. Upton and Big Mama weigh in.

Lilly, Big Mama, and therapist Sarah Reidy, LCSW, get into something a lot of women recognize but rarely talk about out loud: the friend group that slowly stops feeling like a friend group. They cover the high school clique years, what that kind of conditional belonging does to you long term, how it shows up again in mom groups and adult friendships, and what to actually watch for with your own ki...

A listener is dreading the annual family beach trip and needs help. Lilly, Upton, and a late-arriving Big Mama unpack the real dynamics behind group family vacations, why the best memories usually cost the least, and how to protect your PTO without starting a family war.

Lilly sits down with the two women who helped her get to the other side of a contentious custody battle: her friend and criminal defense attorney Stara, who first sounded the alarm when things got financial, and family law attorney Natalie Webb, who took her case and saw it through. Together they unpack what it actually looks like when a co-parenting agreement falls apart, why being the reasonable...

Lilly sits down for a full Ask Me Anything with Big Mama and Upton, and they actually come with questions. The crew covers how and why Lilly chose adoption as a first-time parent, what her relationship with Heidi's birth mom looks like now, and the real story behind the move to Germany. From there it gets lighter: Lilly's perfect Dallas day, her comfort TV rotation, a rapid fire hot seat round, an...

Lilly is back and she's sharing something she'd normally let settle first. After 75 days of solo parenting, a spring break trip with Steve and Heidi, and one very thin hotel room door, her sixth grader hit her with four words that divided her life into a before and an after. The crew unpacks what you say to a 12-year-old in that moment, what it looks like to model a healthy relationship wi...

Lilly Watson and Matt Upton sit down with Taylor Young, Jesuit class of 1999, to discuss his storied past with Neon Girlfriend and The O's to modern fame in The Taylor Young Band and everyone's favorite new act, The Party Crowd Band and the ways he made it as a working artist in Dallas.

Lilly Watson sits down with her old Ursuline classmate Sarah Crain, Executive Director of Preservation Dallas, for a conversation that starts with high school theater memories and lands squarely in the middle of one of Dallas's biggest civic fights right now; the proposed demolition of I.M. Pei's Dallas City Hall to make way for a new Mavericks arena. Sarah breaks down the timeline, the bi...

Lilly runs to Matt and Big Mama after a "terrible fight."

Matt, Lilly and Big Mama revisit some pod topics that have taken on lives of their own, and walk back to the Creek in honor of James.

Valentine's peaks and pits and what to do about your friend's dumb husband are on the minds of Lilly, Matt and Big Mama this week.

An AMA for our biggest best boy Matt. You will love what you learn about our favorite co-parent!