Latchkey Urchins & Friends

Send us Fan Mail Anne and Alison welcome back beloved guests Tyler Tamai (from Ep11 and Ep16) and Kevin Anonymous (Ep20) to cohost about the 80s parenting and cultural environment that led to our messiah complexes. We look at the popular films that shaped our worldview towards saving. What's a reasonable amount of saving? What amount is a mental illness or psychosis? We dive into the psycholo...

Send us Fan Mail Anne and Alison interview Dr. Donielle Prince about holidays in the United States like Presidents day and the legacy of historical racial trauma and violence which complicates celebrating said holidays. We talk about the messiness of engaging with social justice and racial equity work and how to stay in the work. Most importantly we talk about why we need to keep doing this work....

Send us Fan Mail Anne and Alison talk with Dr. Claudia Luiz,  a New York-based psychoanalyst about the nature of mental illness, emotion dysregulation, trauma, and how normal feelings can make us sick. Claudia makes complex mental health topics accessible and conversational. This conversation is not to be missed. You will feel less alone in your crazy world after hearing Claudia's vulnerabili...

Send us Fan Mail Anne and Alison process a heavy week of the loss of the life of loved one Kevin Elder, who had struggled with severe mental illness and substance use disorder. Anne compares his life with the life of her brother, John Romine. They interview another Kevin, who has chosen to keep his last name anonymous due to the nature of his work with psychiatric patients. Kevin Anonymous is a ps...

Send us Fan Mail Anne and Alison interview Maria Sorensen about her early substance misuse and how her recovery journey informs her work as a trauma and substance abuse therapist. Maria shares that she started abusing substances at age 10 and went into recovery at age 21. Alcoholics Anonymous, Adult Children of Alcoholics, and 12-Step communities were vital in her recovery. She talks about denial...

Send us Fan Mail Anne and Alison interview Julyan Davis, a British-American artist living in Asheville, North Carolina about growing up going to Catholic boarding school in England, the particular British outlook with low expectations, his new novel A History of Saints as a healing project, the patriarchy, murder ballads, and more. For more than thirty years he has painted the vanishing architectu...

Send us Fan Mail Anne and Alison interview Carolyn McCarter Wood about trauma, families and eating disorders. Carolyn shares some heartfelt life experiences in her path to this work and her personal healing. Carolyn McCarter Wood is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, Certified Eating Disorders Specialist, and a Licensed Clinical Addiction Specialist who lives near Asheville NC. Carolyn grew up in...

Send us Fan Mail We invited listeners to submit their awkward, funny, or traumatic holiday family stories for this holiday episode. Anne and Alison react to some truly funny and sometimes tragic stories!  Follow us on Instagram. Check out our bonus YouTube content. Latchkey Urchins & Friends website. Audio mastering by Josh Collins. Song "One Cloud is Lonely" by Próxima Parada. Cover...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, we interview comedian Alicia Simmons-Miracle about her and her family's trauma and how she processes through her stand-up comedy. Alicia Simmons Miracle was born in Newark, New Jersey. She is a Groundlings Sunday Company Alumni, she has been featured on stage at the Actors' Gang in Tim Robbins Break The Whip. Alicia has done stand-up comedy at The Laugh...

Send us Fan Mail We are thrilled to share this interview with Emily Munroe and Elise Schuster about healthy and inclusive sex education for children, teens, and people of all ages, and the app Okay So. OkaySo is a free, anonymous app for iOS and Android where you can ask any questions you have about sex, relationships, identity and more to teams of experts who provide personalized support and info...

Send us Fan Mail Anne and Alison tell their toxic positivity recovery stories.  Follow us on Instagram. Check out our bonus YouTube content. Latchkey Urchins & Friends website. Audio mastering by Josh Collins. Song "One Cloud is Lonely" by Próxima Parada. Cover art by Claire Dierksen.

Send us Fan Mail We interview Yin Ling Leung, activist and a founding sister of the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum (NAPAWF), whose parents immigrated from China to Hawaii. We look at the trauma of leaving your family and home community behind to move somewhere else, and how that trauma defines American society.  "Economic violence is any act or behavior which causes economic ha...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Alison and Tyler talk about their middle school trauma and how that may have contributed, albeit indirectly, to their party years and substance misuse in their teens and 20s. Tyler is a Registered Nurse with a BSN in San Diego, California. He is a father, husband, social change maker. In 2020 he was awarded a full scholarship for his nursing program as an Honors F...

Send us Fan Mail We interview Asheville-based painter and artist Alicia Armstrong about her experience growing up Gen X with feelings of alienation. She describes the empty toolbox with which she found herself as she emerged into adulthood. She shares what she has learned along the way about tools for life, self-care, and sanity. Alicia paints primarily on wood panels using graphite, oil, and char...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, we interview Laura Hofmann, M. Ed. about parenting during COVID, trauma-informed career counseling, and The Great Resignation. Laura is an adjunct faculty Career Counselor and instructor at Miramar College in San Diego. She is a first-generation college student and holds a Masters of Education in Counseling & Guidance for Higher Education from California Polyt...

Send us Fan Mail We talk with Tamara Hanna of Love and Loss Counseling who is a Certified Grief Recovery Specialist through The Grief Recovery Institute. We talk about the alternative dolls kids get instead of Barbies when they grow up in a Christian household, toys and clothes on layaway at Kmart (are you feeling nostalgic?), all the things large and small we need to grieve in our lives, recoveri...

Send us Fan Mail At the start of the pandemic, Alison started a little social project with her friends Emelia and Ian. They referred to it as their "cult" and it was a way to stay socially engaged and active during the stressful early pandemic. Ian is an active member and facilitator of Illuman men's groups and Emelia was a co-founder of the Merchants of Reality artist collective in...

Send us Fan Mail This episode features Anne's husband, Tom Sherry, licensed social worker and therapist. He shares his "chill the f*ck out" parenting philosophy, ie how to back off and let your kid become who they were meant to be. Learn why as a kid he was not an urchin, latchkey, nor a ragamuffin, but a panda, rather. Deep dive on the different types of childhood neglect contraste...

Send us Fan Mail We interview Heather Smith, Licensed Professional Counselor, Certified IFS Therapist, & Psychedelic Integration Consultant. We discuss “Big T” vs “little t” trauma, a**hole parents, how much time we wasted in our 20s because of childhood trauma, and MDMA and other psychedelic-assisted therapy. These therapies are being researched more and more in recent years and have proven t...

Send us Fan Mail We welcome guest Connie Burns, therapist and Eco-Grief Circle facilitator.  Eco-Grief Circles explore grief and sorrow, anxiety and fear, guilt and shame, anger, and despair. This experience is designed to offer mutual support, healing, insight, and love. Participants express profound gratitude for being among people who could talk honestly about grief, suffering, and the ecologic...

Send us Fan Mail Before we complain too much about our childhoods, let's take a step back and acknowledge all the luck and privilege we have received and continue to receive as white women in the United States. Dr. Alex Cho, professor of Asian American Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara joins us. Dr. Cho is a media scholar, digital design researcher, critical theorist, and...

Send us Fan Mail Alison and Anne explain the meaning behind the name of the podcast: Latchkey Urchins & Friends. Were you a latchkey kid, an urchin, a ragamuffin, or something in your childhood years? Follow us on Instagram. Check out our bonus YouTube content. Latchkey Urchins & Friends website. Audio mastering by Josh Collins. Song "One Cloud is Lonely" by Próxima Parada. Cover...

Send us Fan Mail Our monthly zoom hangouts during the COVID-19 pandemic morphed into this podcast. We are a therapist and a childhood trauma community health worker trying to bring some lightness and humor to the dark topic of childhood neglect. Come fill the void with us. Follow us on Instagram. Check out our bonus YouTube content. Latchkey Urchins & Friends website. Audio mastering by Josh C...