Scratch That: Parenting & ReParenting Off Script

On today's episode, it's Dr Becky versus Original Sin! What happens when Good Inside takes on the fall of man? Are our jobs as parents to get out of the way and nurture our kids' inherent goodness? Or are we here to guide them away from their bad instincts? In Scratch That fashion, today's tornado conversation swirls through the gray as we try to piece together a both/and philosoph...

Do you ever long to explore a totally new creative outlet or try something brand new? Like, I don't know, write a novel? Open a cute little boutique? Or try your hand at jumpstarting an art career? Our guest today has the trickster energy to try it all, throwing off scripts about being too inexperienced or too old to explore, try, and play. Elsie Larson is a mother of two and co-founder of A B...

Anyone else feeling a little extra anxious these days? SAME. On today's episode, we share some of the strategies and tools we're using to stay grounded and keep belly-crawling forward. Tune in to hear us talk about: 🌥Why taking pictures of the sky calms Caitlin's nervous system. 🏘 Caitlin's most annoying anxiety hack. 📰 The new way Rebekah is consuming news. 🧥 What Rebekah is doi...

In today's episode, Laura Danger (aka @thatdarnchat ) dives into a candid conversation with us about care work, domestic labor, and the powerful/often invisible scripts that shape our life choices, relationship dynamics, and home lives. Offering a unique perspective as a parent with ADHD and bipolar 2, Laura invites us to go off script, tune out default societal expectations, and set the terms...

What do we do when our parenting strategies aren't working out the way we expected? Or we stumble into a hard parenting fail? On today's episode, we share parenting stories we recorded several months ago on the CosmoParenting podcast . Then we reflect on those stories, honestly naming the ways our strategies are evolving (or not) with time. This is an episode all about the messy, unresolve...

Will these charming Brits be able to withstand Rebekah's gushing?? If you don't yet know who Lucy and James Catchpole are, tune into our episode from last week,  "Catchpoles + Andy J Pizza Love Fest."  Two disabled parents who run a children's literary agency and write picture books, Lucy and James talk to us about their early experiences with disability, the ways disability sh...

On today's Show-and-Tell episode, we gush about some of our favorite creators: Lucy and James Catchpole (disabled parents and children's book authors, with "more children than working legs") and Andy J Pizza (New York Times bestselling author / illustrator / podcaster). And we want to hear from you, too! Who are the creators lighting up your world these days? Tune in to hear us tal...

On today's episode, we talk with the one-and-only, our beloved editor, Amelia Hruby ! You've heard her name at the end of every episode and today we bring you her voice. Founder of the feminist podcast studio, Softer Sounds , and host of her own podcast, Off the Grid , Amelia is a prominent and grounding voice in the increasingly anxious world of social media (especially for those of us wi...

On today's episode, we get to chat with the creative powerhouses, Esther Huybreghts and Melissa Cash. Driven by the need for good alternatives to overwhelming, addictive children's apps saturating the market, they set out to create an experience that parents could feel good about handing to their kids. They made the thing they needed, and Pok Pok was born — the Apple Design Award-winning p...

This week on SCRATCH THAT, we grapple with some of our inner Boomer-parenting instincts. What if our kids don't "have it as hard as we did"? How do we make sure we raise them to have scrappy, resilient, creative, trickster energy for the inevitable struggles ahead? Tune in to hear us: ⛈️ Name our particular parenting triggers. 🧳 Unpack the actual legacy of some of our early childhood...

We cannot wait for you to hear our conversation with Maria Bowler . Maria's life has followed a delightfully winding path from magazine editor to an MA in religious studies, from years studying with nuns to creative coach. She is also who Caitlin wants to be when they grow up and, most recently, an author of the recently released book, Making Time: A New Vision for Crafting a Life Beyond Produ...

A growing goal for SCRATCH THAT is to find ways for this community to know and connect with each other, so this week, we have a special invitation for our listeners. What is a song that has held you — as a parent and/or a person? A song that has brought you back to the ground/yourself/your values. A song that gave you the thing you needed when you needed it? Would you drop it in the comments below...

Last week, we swirled around the impossible questions of paradigms – What stories did we inherit? What stories are we passing on (intentionally & unintentionally)?  Enter – Abbie VanMeter. Abbie is the executive director of the CMM Institute for Personal and Social Evolution , the host of the Stories Lived. Stories Told.  podcast, the host of the CosmoParenting Podcast , and an incredibly insi...

This week on SCRATCH THAT, we process the great and ambiguous responsibility of creating paradigms for our kids — the context for what they will understand as "normal" — the scripts/stories they have about themselves, the world, and their relationship to it. Holding our curiosity in the forefront and never tying any tidy bows, we swirl around our own inheritances and the ones we're pas...

💔 Why is it hard to feel hopeful right now? ✨ Point to something that makes us feel hopeful — tell a story? 🌱 Hope as a verb — name a seed we are going to plant? ✏️ Caitlin leaves us with three practices they're using to imagine a hopeful future

Now that we're a few months into making SCRATCH THAT, we take this episode to reflect on the podcast values that are revealing themselves as the most important to us. In this episode, we pull cards from Lisa Congdon's Live Your Values deck  and compare notes. What do we want to prioritize? What is the target? What do we want to guide/ground each conversation? This feels like an ongoing col...

We wish every single one of you could sit in the presence of Sacha Mardou. Until that day, we offer you this hearts-out, into-the-depths-of-it-together conversation. Author of the graphic memoir, Past Tense , Sacha shares her story of developing anxiety when she turned 40, going to therapy for the first time, and learning that her childhood story was still with her, waiting for her self-compassion...

Last week, Caitlin invited us to mark the turn of the year by writing letters to 2024/2025. Today, we bring you the words that came from that prompt. You will hear tears, a whole lot of heartfelt, both/and reflection, and an invitation to write your own letter/create your own artifact to mark this shift in the calendar. At the end of the episode, Rebekah shares a little bit about how deeply diffic...

In today's episode, we reflect on our memories/associations with New Years, and the practices that do/don't feel good around this time of year. We are moving away from new year's resolutions and toward reflective practices that allow us to bear witness to the previous year. Tune in to hear us talk about: 🎊 The ways we moved through this holiday when we were young. 📓 Caitlin's ann...

As we gear up for the week of Christmas and all of the layered feelings this stretch of days can bring, we wanted to offer you something good and grounding. To prepare, we gave ourselves a prompt: write a little blessing, love note, prayer for the holiday week. Today, we read them allowed – an offering to ourselves, each other, and you. We would love to hear from you! How are you orienting yoursel...

Lisa Olivera 's words are a uniquely grounding force in a world fueled by algorithms that thrive on speedy-hot-takes, over-simplicity, and one-note narratives. Every time the internet feels like it’s literally going to combust under the strain of loud noises, her steady voice calls us back to our bodies and our inner knowing. We had so many questions for her! And in Lisa-fashion, she met our w...

We are in the season of a million gift-giving choices – What do we want to spend money on? How do we find gifts that make people feel seen/loved/celebrated? How do we buy/make gifts with thought and care when we don't have any time? Today, we dive headfirst into our personal gift giving values and offer a giant pile of recommendations (no one is paying us to make!) with the hope that it sparks...

Today we bring you a mini mid-week episode to tell you all about Rebekah's forthcoming picture book, We Are the Scrappy Ones . Tune in to hear: 🌱 The origin story of the book and who Rebekah wrote it for. 👽 A bit about what it felt like for Rebekah to grow up with a disability. 🌗 The ways writing about the experience of disability for a younger audience felt very different from other writin...

This conversation was inspired by a visit Rebekah took to her son's classroom. As he has adjusted to a new school, Rebekah has tried to think more critically about how she wants to lead the conversation (and onslaught of inevitable questions these kids have) about her wheelchair. In SCRATCH THAT fashion, this episode is more in-real-time-processing and back-and-forth questions than a 1-2-3 ste...

Today we tackle what Caitlin refers to as the "cheerful nostalgia and heart-wrenching sorrow" the holidays can bring. For so many of us, this particular time of year comes with a lot of guilt and pressure, hard memories or sadness that the present doesn't look quite like we think it should. Together we process what makes these days hard for the both of us and generate a host of ideas f...