Model Minority Moms

As young girls, we all struggled with body image issues or eating disorders, so how did pregnancy and postpartum affect how we see our physical self? How have conflicting messages about beauty and body image from our Asian elders and the influence of pop culture influenced how our self-confidence? And how can we develop a more grounded sense of our own beauty and pass that on to our mixed-rac...

Hate it or love it, "tiger parenting" has become a byword for Asian-American moms in the last decade. We share our opinions on what we think tiger parenting actually is, and how it differs from other parenting philosophies, like "free-range parenting". We dig into how racial and socio-economic dynamics impact people's perceptions of parenting philosophies, and how we struggle to define what it mea...

Confessional time - we go into the deep recesses of our childhood to evaluate how safe we felt with our parents, and whether we were emotionally attached to our parents in a healthy way. We talk about attachment theory, which says that our childhood relationships with our parents impact our whole lives. Does being poorly attached as a child ourselves doom us to a poor attachment relationship with...

Motherhood can be really hard. Like tired-to-the-bone/cry-in-the-bathroom/scream-into-my-pillow hard. So, why have kids at all? It wasn't our dream-since-forever to have kids, and yet, now that we're moms, we can't imagine not having our children. We share stories about how parenting our kids teaches us to live fully in the present, gives us moments of matchless delight, pushes us to grow, and all...

Fertility can be kind of a paradox - sometimes it seems like getting pregnant is so easy (it even happens by accident!) but sometimes despite our very best efforts, it can take a ton of time, money, and our emotional and physical energy with no guarantee of a baby. With more and more women choosing to delay motherhood to make time for careers and other interests, complex fertility journeys are bec...

Our striving for achievement keeps us functioning most of the time but we've all experienced times when we've approached meltdowns. In this episode, we talk about our breaking points that led us to therapy, the stigma of meds, and the critical role our partners play in our well-being. We share ways we get unstuck, fears of how our kids will perceive our low periods, and ways to befriend the inner...

The obsession about putting our kids in the "right" school so they can have the "best" outcomes can put us in dangerous territory real fast (with a nerve-wracking spreadsheet!). Our immigrant parents wanted better for us so is it wrong to want better for our kids? And what is the end game in all of this? Early childhood education can heavily influence a kid's future so the pressure is on to choose...

Our embarrassing turn-our-cheeks-pink first name snafu and how we landed on our podcast name today.

Cautiously unpacking anti-blackness with our Asian parents, microaggressions we get as Asian women, and remembering the Atlanta Spa Shootings. We're tired of being Othered -- within our families and in the world.

We scream into a pillow about the invisible labor of running the household, the impossible standards of instagram moms, and the confusion of being a good feminist. The social contract of women is messy with a capital M.

Deconstructing our white guy tendencies, hating our hyphenated selves, and taking on the extra labor of raising our kids with complicated identities. Not to mention in-laws. We love our multicultural family, but this shit is hard.

As immigrant kids, we're really triggered by money. TBH, it controls us sometimes. We rethink our relationship with money to add real value, mental sanity, and metaphorical bagel chips to our lives.

Cult leaders and Chinese literary fantasies are no match for the real work (and endearing moments) of long-term partnership.

Kiddo, follow your passion, but don't live in my basement. Figuring out how to teach grit with privilege when our parenting philosophy is light years from where we came from.

The insurmountable envy, loneliness and exhaustion as a newborn parent.

Our deliveries were as different as our personalities: Kate prepared for it like a PSAT National Merit Scholar, Jeanette was on laughing gas, and Susan took selfies with her placenta.