Sandwich Parenting

Dave Walker lived a life that might be familiar to anyone trapped in the rat race, making good money and surrounding himself with "stuff", but fundamentally unhappy with his work, using alcohol as a coping mechanism, and disturbed by the person staring back at him in the mirror. What might not be so familiar is Dave's trajectory out of this spiral: re-examining his upbringing, leaving his work sit...

For many people who are in the helping vocation or field, a very personal story of pain and then triumph is a usually part of their healing/helping journey.  Renée Rodriguez went through her personal fight in a battle in order to have custody of her children after a divorce. This can be a very isolating experience... confusing, overwhelming, nonsensical and illogical. She managed to build a t...

Jeannie Baldomero comes from a military immigrant family originally from the Philippines, which meant that they moved around a lot depending on where her father was deployed until they settled in San Diego. She went to a private Catholic school and was a typical Latch Key kid. While she grew up fast and became very independent, her conservative family did not allowing dating. That meant, of course...

A social worker for two decades and a mother of a teenager, Sofia Reddy is a first generation Greek American who is now shifting into the role of a wellness coach. We explore how our parenting has changed from that from the previous generation, which tended to be more authoritarian and hierarchical.  We have a wonderful conversation about parenting, stress, choices, celebrating the wins, and...

Jenny Toh was doing well professionally. She studied law in England and her legal career spanned almost 3 decades in Malaysia and Singapore. She worked as a litigator, a corporate attorney and a derivatives legal counsel. Married mother of 3 children and an active member in her local church, she was living a good life. But she felt called to be a life coach and started River Life Coaching to help...

Jasmina Pilak is a Pediatric Family and Developmental Counselor at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto, working with families with children from 0 to 18 age of year. She also has a psychotherapy private practice focusing on the Parent-Child interaction. Passionate about helping parents deal with the challenges of parenting, she brings a calm, authentic wisdom to her work with parents and children.&n...

Kulbinder Saran Caldwell's background in advocacy for diversity drives every project she is involved with.  When race, gender or sexual orientation are the basis of any barrier, she will knock it down.  As Founder & CEO of Reallife Pictures, Kulbinder is passionate about opening doors for diverse and emerging writers that had been closed by complacent decision-makers in the screen in...

Kimberly Weeks is a Trauma Recovery Coach specializing in working with people recovering from abused by narcissists. Her choice of specialization comes from a very personal place. Not only is she doing this work for own healing journey and for her clients through theirs, Kimberly is also a Supervisor for the International Association of Trauma Recovery Coaching. That is to say, she's so passionate...

Charlene Wang is the Founder of LivingOS (https://www.livingos.org), an online community supporting high achievers and, more recently, the author of Model Breakers, a book that aims to help readers break up with the model Asian minority stereotype. She is a typical high achiever, a great example of what I have coined Shouldaholic, working towards the success our Asian parents wanted for us. When h...

Raw and real, Tou Ger Lee shares the story about his Hmong parents' journey from the dangerous jungles of Laos to their new sponsored life in Wisconsin. A transformational coach who works with high achievers, Tou Ger knows what it is like to be successful and not actually feel anything. Drawing on his experience rejecting and then embracing his culture and heritage, Tou Ger embodies how to live yo...

Raj Tawney is an American essayist and journalist based in New York. Raised in a multiracial household by an Indian father and an Italian/Puerto Rican American mother, his exposure to race, culture, and class has uniquely impacted his viewpoint. He has contributed essays to New York Magazine, The Boston Globe, O, the Oprah Magazine, Variety, LA Weekly, F(r)iction, Broad Street Review, Entropy Maga...

Tim Brantingham comes from a long line of Ohio missionaries living in Asia (5th generation to be exact). He was born in Taiwan, returned to the US for college, lived in various cities in Asia as an expat, married an American-Japanese wife, is the father of 3 kids, and recently relocated from Hong Kong to Japan. He’s not only a Sandwich Kid where his parents made decisions that greatly differed fro...

Canadian author Elen Ghulam was born to a Czech mother and an Iraqi father. She spent her youth going back and forth between the two cultures and languages. Mother to three grown children, she is also a flamenco dancer , an artist , and a hostess-chef extraordinaire .   Prior to having kids, she had the fantasy of being the best mother in the world, you know, Mother Theresa + Mary Poppins + M...

Jen Lumanlan is the founder of Your Parenting Mojo , where she examines scientific research related to child development through the lens of respectful parenting. She is a prolific researcher, writer and podcaster. In our conversation, Jen touches on numerous topics that I think you will find profound and insightful. #sandwichparenting #consciousparenting #respectfulparenting #gentleparenting #pea...

Eli and Jen are a husband and wife coaching team with two teen children.  They decided shortly after their first child was born they were going to parent differently than their parents did. They are professional coaches with years of training, certified by the World Coaching Institute as Child, Youth, Parent and Family Coaches. They work with parents who are dealing with toxic /dysfunctional...

Michelle Lee Diasinos, parent to two, is a Conscious Parent advocate, coach, author and co-host of The Mothers’ Roundtable podcast. Read her chapter in the #1 International Best Selling Change Makers Volume 4 , where she shares her personal transformation that led her into this place of service to parents navigating their unique path . A recovering perfectionist, Michelle delves into the challenge...

After deciding that her Super Mom/Tiger Mom approach was not going to work (not too long after the birth of her son!), Lina Lie did her research and now is a parenting coach, focused on Peaceful Parenting. She shares her journey and how a peaceful parenting approach not only helped her be the kind of parent she wants to be, but it has also improved her marriage. Listen to our chat and find out how...

Adrienne Hedger is the award-winning cartoonist behind the popular web comic “Hedger Humor.” Her work has been featured on popular media outlets such as BuzzFeed, The Huffington Post, Upworthy, Today.com, Yahoo!, Disney, and Nickelodeon. Several of Adrienne’s cartoons have become viral sensations, reaching tens of millions of people worldwide. We had so much fun on this episode where she shared he...

A Sandwich Parent who saved herself from a complete loss of cognitive functions to being Australia’s first Certified Trauma Recovery Coach, Linda Meredith truly knows what suffering from CPTSD is like.  Based out of Brisbane, Linda makes her trauma recovery expertise available globally through her YouTube channel , Healing CPTSD website , and Facebook community .  She wants you to believ...

Joline Lim comes from a Chin-dian background (Chinese/Indian). Living in Singapore, a very competitive environment with a huge focus on academic achievement, Joline embraced Gentle Parenting, feeling there is much to learn from a variety of experts and approaches. Listen to our fun chat to learn about the journey to The Learning Parent SG where she advocates for respectful parenting with a Singapo...

Iris Chen played by the rules of society and was a great success by society's standards, but felt that those achievements didn't mean anything at the end of the day.  She is now on a journey of Untigering : which she defines as Gentle Parenting and Unschooling.  She is a deconstructing Tiger Mom, and in the process, brings us along to question our own upbringing and how we parent our own...

Jonathan and Annie Su have learned to preserve values they learned from their parents and to evolve new ones as parents themselves.  Breaking from traditional immigrant Chinese expectations, they live their lives defined by their own meaning and passion.  I interviewed Jonathan and Annie Su on the last day of their quarantine in Hong Kong, right before they left for their third family Ga...