Becoming Burnham

Send us Fan Mail Most of us were never taught how to balance being strong with actually letting ourselves rest. We learned how to push through, how to show up, how to hold it together. And for a lot of people that becomes the only setting they know. So when the overwhelm starts building, we just keep going because that's what we do. In this episode Kristina and Kat talk about what it looks li...

Send us Fan Mail Happy 4th of July weekend, this will be a quick one! Tomorrow marks our nation's 250th anniversary, and I am flying completely solo because Kristina is officially off the grid on vacation—meaning I have full control of the mic. Today’s episode is a raw, unfiltered reality check on what 'security' actually means in 2026. Working in corporate HR and talent acquisition...

Send us Fan Mail We are wrapping up Men’s Health Month by looking at what it actually takes to protect the health of the man leading your home. Today, Kat and Kyle get completely transparent about the mental and physical realities of hitting your late 30s after the military. We’re laughing through the chaos of sharing the exact same therapist, debunking the "good on paper" relationship a...

Send us Fan Mail This episode is a birthday party. Arlan's. And you're invited. He would have been 13 this year, and we're celebrating the only way we know how — by talking about him. Who he was, how he loved, and what he left behind in the people who are still here. Come hang out with us.

Send us Fan Mail Most parenting advice assumes you were there from the beginning. But what happens when you come into a child's life mid chapter and have to earn something that other parents just automatically get? In this episode Kat and Kyle get honest about what it looked like to build real relationships with each other's kids. What it took, what it cost, and what they learned along t...

Send us Fan Mail A few episodes back Kat revealed that she handles the entire family calendar — coordinating directly with Sam, sending Kyle the invites, and keeping the whole operation running. The internet had a lot to say about it. So in this episode Kristina and Kat brought Kyle in to speak for himself. This is a conversation about how a blended family actually functions when everyone stops fi...

Send us Fan Mail We planned a birthday episode for Ella turning fifteen. We had the outline, the questions, the whole thing was ready. Then one question stopped everything — what are you excited about? What do you want in this next chapter? — and there was nothing. Because everything she'd want to look forward to, she'd want to share with her brother Arlan. And Arlan isn't here. So...

Send us Fan Mail Every parent hits that moment sometime in May where summer suddenly feels very close and very real and slightly terrifying. You've got the end of year chaos still happening, you're trying to figure out what summer actually looks like, and somewhere in the back of your head you know that the school schedule has been holding your life together and it's about to just s...

Send us Fan Mail If you've ever frozen in public because of something that just came out of your kid's mouth — this episode is for you. Kat and Sam are sharing the moments their kids said the thing nobody was ready for. The embarrassing, the unhinged, the brutally honest, and the surprisingly deep. Because kids don't filter. They don't perform. They just tell the truth about ev...

Send us Fan Mail This one's equal parts hug and honest conversation. We're not doing the highlight reel version of Mother's Day — the brunch, the flowers, the performance of gratitude. We're doing the real one. Kat and Sam are getting into the stuff that actually lives underneath the holiday and the identity changes that creep in the moment you become somebody's mom. This...

Send us Fan Mail This isn’t your grandmother’s parenting podcast. In Episode 16, we’re burning the manual. We’re diving into the "unfiltered" reality of being a millennial mom and breaking down all the outdated, toxic, or just plain weird advice we’ve been given. From the "cry it out" debates to the pressure of being a "Pinterest-perfect" household, we’re discussing w...

Send us Fan Mail “From the outside, it looks like a puzzle. From the inside, it’s just Tuesday.” Today, we’re talking to Kat and Sam about their "Family Pretzel." They live next door, they share everything from pets to passwords, and they’ve built a life that defies every label in the book. We’re digging into the messy, beautiful, and highly practical details of how they made it work whe...

Send us Fan Mail This isn’t the kind of “friends with benefits” you think you know. In Episode 14, we’re moving past the "Petty Wars" to dive into a topic that defines the very core of this family: Adoption. We are exploring two mirror-image journeys—Kat, who discovered she was adopted at age 36, and Ella, whose legal adoption by her step-father, Kyle, is finalized this month. This is a ...

Send us Fan Mail This isn’t the kind of “friends with benefits” you think you know. In Episode 13, the ex-wife and the current wife prove that choosing peace doesn't mean choosing silence. We’re diving into the "marital-but-not-marital" chaos of two women who live next door to each other and fight like they share a brain cell—because they basically do. From the "Great Move-Out...

Send us Fan Mail This isn’t your typical medical-grade parenting guide. In Episode 12, we tackle a massive list of pregnancy and parenting questions sent in by our UK besties, Josh and his girlfriend. From the "belly button draft" to why your one-month-old's favorite show is actually the ceiling fan, we’re breaking down the myths and the madness of expecting. No boring manuals—just...

Send us Fan Mail This week, I’m taking you through the wild, chaotic, unbelievable collection of stories that built me: three marriages, discovering I was adopted at 36, cancer, miscarriage, raising six kids in four different eras, losing my home in a tornado, and surviving the kind of grief that splits your life into before and after. But this episode isn’t about trauma. It’s about resilience — t...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Kat and Kyle open up about the long road of recovery — the months and years after disaster when most people have moved on but the grief hasn't. They talk honestly about what community support actually looked like, who showed up, who stayed, and where it fell short.  This episode covers the questions that don't get asked enough: what do grieving families...

Send us Fan Mail This episode dives into the first days after child loss — the shock response, the physical symptoms of grief, the disorientation of the first 24 hours, the logistics no one prepares you for, and the emotional impact on surviving children. Katherine also shares how people showed up, the lies grief told her, and what she wishes every grieving parent knew in those early days. Next we...

Send us Fan Mail This episode of Friends with Benefits is a deeply moving exploration of survival, maternal instinct, and the unbreakable bond of family. Following our introduction to Arlan, we move into the day of the storm—a day that redefined "home" for Kat, Kyle and Ella. The conversation centers on the parallel experiences of a mother, father and daughter: Kat, who faced the agony o...

Send us Fan Mail In this first episode of our three-part series, we step into the life of Arlan, a child whose love and curiosity left a lasting mark on his family and community. Together with his mother, Kat, we explore the ordinary moments of family life, the rhythms of community, and the subtle signs that something was quietly shifting. This episode is about connection, love, and the moments th...

Send us Fan Mail Three moms, seven kids, and one loud, blended village. In this episode, we introduce the kids who brought us together, share the chaos of daily life, confess our most unhinged parenting hacks, and compare how each of us handles the same parenting moment in totally different ways. If your house looks nothing like ours, that’s the point — every family does this differently. Welcome...

Send us Fan Mail It’s Valentine’s season, so we’re talking love, relationships, and all the mess in between. In this episode, we share our best/worst dates, awkward dating stories, love language truths, and what we’ve learned about showing up in real relationships. Whether you’re single or partnered, this one’s for anyone who’s ever tried to date in real life.

Send us Fan Mail Kyle’s birthday month always feels like it’s competing with Valentine’s Day — and somehow Valentine’s always wins. In this episode, we try to give his day the spotlight it deserves. We share stories about the man behind the spreadsheets, laugh about the ways he gets overlooked, and play a quick bonus game called “Kyle or Valentine’s Day.” Happy Birthday Month, Kyle. This one’s for...

Send us Fan Mail Turns out people have opinions. A lot of them. In this episode, we’re diving into the wildest comments, assumptions, and theories from our first episode. Some of it is funny. Some of it is just plain wild. And some of it says more about the people watching than it does about us. We’re responding, laughing, and setting the record straight. Hit play and listen in.

Send us Fan Mail Everyone asks the same thing: Is it ever awkward, weird, or jealous? In this episode of Friends With Benefits, the ex-wife and the current wife talk honestly about jealousy, boundaries, kid moments, and the side-eyes people assume must’ve blown everything up—and how they didn’t. Real life isn’t drama-free. It’s just handled differently.