Model Minority Moms

Matchmaker, co-founder of a magazine for Asian-American teenage girls, co-founder of the Gold House collective (a leading AAPI organization for advancing media representation and commercial success), former management consultant, former chief of staff to Tony Hsieh the founder of Zappos, now a venture capitalist with Andreessen Horowitz... Maggie's career has been interesting and impressive to say...

What's money got to do with your career? Is it everything, nothing, somewhere in between? How does the level of compensation influence how you feel about your job? What was your parents' message to you? What's your message to your kids? We tackle these questions and more in our episode on career and money, and our experiences trying to navigate these sometimes treacherous and confusing waters.

What's your strategy for managing career decisions with your spouse? Do you take turns prioritizing one person's career over the other? Do each of you have a defined role? What does money have to do with it? How do you factor in risk/passion/other contributions to the household? In this episode, we talk about how we have managed - or not! :( - career decisions with our spouses and what we've learn...

In part 2 of "What do your parents think of your career?" Susan shares her reflections on how her parents and family have shaped her career decisions. Susan says that her dad was a "tiger dad in a foreign land" - can you immediately relate? Have no clue what she's talking about? Tune in to hear how Susan has tried to keep her performative streak alive while trying to keep her parents happy.

Ah parents... Some of them have strong opinions about your career but have no clue about the actual reality you face. Some of them might have a clue but offer no support. And for some reason, they always seem to say the wrong thing about what you do. If this isn't your experience, we are happy for you. For those of us who feel a small stab to the heart whenever our parents say something about our...

From human right NGO work in Vietnam, to starting a boutique chocolate company, to working as a consultant to the world's largest tech firms, to producing a national one-woman show about her mom, Susan's career has taken many twists and turns. Through it all, she has asked herself the questions 'Who am I and what am I supposed to be doing in this world?" In this episode, Susan shares the many hila...

Forget the mid-life crisis. For many in our generation, we've been going through major career questioning since our mid-twenties. What do we want to do 'when we grow up'? What are we supposed to do with our lives? Careers take up so much mindspace and time in our lives but it can still feel like a struggle. In this first episode of a series on careers, Jeanette and Kate talk through their sometime...

So many more unmarried women in their 30s and 40s are choosing to become a mother without a partner, but it still feels taboo to discuss. You might be one of these women yourself and if not, you probably have a friend who is considering this. We are so honored to have our friend Tamar on our show this week, to walk us through her decision to become a single mom by choice with so much openness and...

Mom Judgement is the cherry on top of the huge mountain of responsibilities we have to manage as parents. Why is there so much Mom Judgement in the world? From family? From friends? From society? Even other... moms?? In this episode, we discuss times when we felt Mom Judgement in our lives and try to get to the bottom of why it exists and what we can do about it.

What's your sugar, screens, salt policy for your kid? Like Mike Tyson said, everyone has a plan until your kid finds the snack bag or walks into a birthday party. We talk through our approaches and how they work out in real life. 

Kate, Susan and Jeanette walk down memory lane and reassess their dating histories (including that time that Susan thought she was going to marry a cult leader). Predictably, we all had really different dating experiences but we all learned some common lessons that we wished we knew when we were starting out.

How did parenthood change your perspective on your career? Did it force you to buckle down so that you could provide the kind of life you wanted for your kids? Pull back so that you could have more time and energy for them? Switch tracks so that you could work on something that inspires you and may be also your kids someday? In this episode, we talk about how becoming moms changed (or didn't chang...

It's an open secret - getting reliable, high-quality childcare as a working mom/dad is tenuous at the best. Even with full-time care, managing a professional career that often demands more than 8 hours a day with kids and home responsibilities is really hard. At its worst, you're paying a whole lot of money for childcare while you're trying to juggle work and a sick toddler staying home. In this e...

Perhaps our #1 fan, Jake  joins us on our podcast to talk about why he loves our show (even if it sometimes makes him a bit uncomfortable), what he really thought when Jeanette gave him a book about bombs for Valentine's Day in college, and what it's like to be a white guy living with your Korean mother-in-law.

Tell-all about how to get your kid into Harvard…JUST KIDDING. Some people think a Harvard degree guarantees you wealth but it’s a double-edged sword, especially for children of immigrants. We dish about applying, getting in, and how the degree sprinkled some fairy dust on our professional and personal lives. We cast off the rose-tinted lenses and give you our unfiltered take on the H-bomb.

Doctor, Entrepreneur, Dad - Nirav, Kate's husband wears many hats. In our interview we found that he has worn many different hats in his life. He shares about his journey growing up as an only child of Indian immigrants in small town America, dropping out of medical school to try photography, marrying a type A Chinese-American and becoming a girl dad.

Sometimes it’s easier to let friendships fade away when there’s conflict or just put up with dysfunction without saying anything. It’s easier that way to avoid the drama. And tbh, we almost broke up ourselves–but then we fought to keep us together. It was superrr scary, but we did it. Because…we’re supposed to be a role model to our kids right?

Sometimes it’s easier to let friendships fade away when there’s conflict or just put up with dysfunction without saying anything. It’s easier that way to avoid the drama. And tbh, we almost broke up ourselves–but then we fought to keep us together. It was superrr scary, but we did it. Because…we’re supposed to be a role model to our kids right? And also, we wanted to keep doing the podcast togethe...

By listener request: we tackle two giant elephants that loooove to populate Asian American lives: shame and guilt. Both are seemingly built into many traditional cultures, and we have all been traumatized by these feelings. As adults responsible for creating a healthy emotional environment for our own kids, we discuss why we experience these emotions, the impact on our kids, whether they are valua...

Based on listener feedback, we did it! We wrangled our husbands to be on the show. In this episode, Susan’s husband Marvin reveals what he thinks of the podcast, supporting Susan’s dream to become an artist, and what it’s like to be married to your complete opposite. Meet Marvin: a Canadian- American-Hong Kong-Korean who doesn’t feel like an outsider and loves to mountaineer.

Navigating the emotional rollercoaster and hairy logistics of COVID has taken over our life at times. In this episode, we talk about the challenges of life as a working mom during COVID, how it's different now vs the beginning of the pandemic and what we hope the future will hold.

Whether or not to have a second kid is a looming decision for many of us. The “2 Under 2” plan seems good in theory but a nightmare in practice. Does 1 plus 1 equal 2? 1.5? 11?

Having kids brings a whole slew of questions, stresses, and joys around the end of year holidays. What do you actually believe in (Santa, Jesus, Buddha, any others???) and want to tell your kids? What kind of holiday memories do you want to make with them? How do you handle potentially triggering family gatherings? In this episode, we discuss Susan’s urgent parent dilemma: what do you tell your al...

What do you get your kids, nieces and nephews who might already have a ton of stuff? Are you stressed by everyone else’s Instagram-perfect holiday decorations that appear like magic right after Thanksgiving, when you’re still lying around with your pants unbuttoned? On this episode, we discuss our real thoughts about and experience of the winter holidays, and provide our own survival tips. Hint: a...

Our families of origin are often the source of the deepest love and the deepest hurt. Even in our mid-thirties, we struggle to break the cycle of hurtful interactions with those closest to us. With kids, figuring out some way to do it better seems even more urgent. We're told to set boundaries by our therapists, but how do you do that with an older generation that doesn't know what boundaries mean...