The Family Lab: Experiments in Parenting and Home Management

Vanessa Quigley, co-founder of Chatbooks, shares the story of how--and why--they started the company and gives lots of great tips about taking, storing, curating, and enjoying family photos. 

My guests and I discuss eleven ways to help our kids develop their talents as we try to untangle this topic. Are we pushing too hard? Not enough? Enriching them with good experiences or overscheduling them? But though it can be difficult, helping our kids cultivate their talents is one of the best parts of motherhood.

This is a story of a two mothers, two pandemics, and two births-- three generations apart. It's a story of poetry and hope, and about how good things can come from difficult circumstances.

Jasmine and Madison Wilson have made music, love, and laughter their family creed, as well as their Instagram handle (@musiclovelaughter). In this episode, we talk about how Jasmine has cultivated her young daughter's musical talent, helping her write and record original songs as early as age 6. 

The first in a three-episode series about one of the very best parts of motherhood--discovering each of our kids' unique talents and helping them cultivate those talents.  

Andrea Davis, founder of Better Screen Time, shares how her whole family works together to set boundaries around technology, and keep an ongoing, positive dialogue about screentime. Resources: Betterscreentime.com Connection Reset Challenge Linda and Richard Eyre Article Gabb Wireless

A rundown of the experiments we're trying in the Archibald home this summer, from cooking classes to way too many sports to chores.

I teamed up with two other moms of gluten free kids to talk about how we help our gluten free kids. As I like to do on this podcast, we'll start by talking about our gluten free strategies—our overall approach—and move to more specific tactics and then the logistics of cooking gluten free and keeping our gluten-free kids fed and healthy. Resources:  gfkiddos.com glutenfreewithcoral.com

Meghann Guentensberger lost her daughter in a tragic accident four years ago. In this episode she tells her story of the accident, her family's journey through grief, and her mission to follow Rylie's example of spreading love and kindness with her non-profit organization called Rylie's ARK, which stands for Acts of Random Kindness.  You can learn more about this amazing organization at ryliesark....

Traveling when you have kids takes patience, planning, and creativity, even if you're leaving them home, but it can be done! And—usually—it's worth all the pain. This episode shares creative tips and tricks from planning to packing to entertaining kids in the car and making it through the airport, and then to the adventures themselves. Happy travels!

Leslie Graff rediscovered her passion for creating art around the time she also became a mom. What she didn't anticipate was how much each of these pursuits would enrich the other.

Nancy Maldonado became the CEO of the Chicano Federation of San Diego in January 2019, which meant she had about a year to prepare for the organization's COVID-19 response--without any clue that that's what she was preparing for. I talked to Nancy about how she discovered her passion for helping underserved communities and how she manages her career and motherhood. We also had a great conversation...

Wendy Castellanos-Wolf and Alexandra Rozo met while pursuing a shared passion for Flamenco dancing, and recently started pursing a new passion project together, as co-hosts of the Mama Cita podcast. You'll love this conversation all about how they discovered their passions, how they pursue them as busy moms, and how they deal with mom guilt.  

In this episode, nine different women share how they discovered their passions, from law to flamenco. Some of these women have pursued their passions through their careers, some through hobbies, some through volunteer work. Others weave their passions through everything they do. This episode will be especially helpful if you are not quite sure what you're passionate about right now, if you can't f...

Monica Tanner is passionate about marriages and families and, well, passion itself. In fact, she's made a career of it. She started a company called On the Brighter Side of Marriage, to combine marriage and business coaching.  In this episode, we're going to talk to Monica about how she prioritizes marriage, family, and work--in that order. 

Buried in laundry? This workshop will help you craft your own realistic laundry system, using ideas from lots of different families. To get the most out of the workshop, you can buy a $5 workbook at howshemoms.com . How Dana White does laundry: A Slob Comes Clean Podcast   How Kendra Adachi does laundry: The Lazy Genius Podcast

Lubna Jamal immigrated to the United States from Pakistan about 20 years ago to marry her husband, a recent immigrant himself. Last week, I invited her into my fancy podcasting studio/aka my bedroom closet to talk to her about how she teaches her two sons about their cultural heritage and family history.

To work or to stay home with your baby. That is the question. Or that used to be the question. Or maybe we just thought it was the question. The truth is, we have more than two options when it comes to motherhood and work—more options than mothers have ever had, thanks in part to pioneering feminists who came before us, advances in technology, and changes in the way we do business. Not to mention...

Ashley Freehan mastered the work-from-home mom routine well before the pandemic. She not only knows how to take care of business and her two kids; she's good at taking care of herself too. Ashley shares her great ideas from how to entertain kids while you're working, to helping them understand your work, to figuring out a viable daily schedule, to convincing your kids to wear underwear. 

It's that time again—about three times a year, I do a whole episode updating you on the experiments we're trying here in the Archibald home—from sleep to chores to allowance to travel.

Delphine Brandt grew up in France, then married an American and moved to the U.S. shortly after they had their first child. She talks about adjusting to motherhood while adjusting to a new culture, and how they have merged the two cultures in their family--from food to discipline to wardrobe. 

One day you're the same you you've always been--the next day you're a mom. In this episode I talk to moms about how becoming a mom affected their sense of identity, from defining this new role to reevaluating goals and behaviors to rekindling past interests. 

Kathleen Stout was visiting friends in Scotland when she found out she would become a foster mom. A couple weeks later, she was suddenly a single working mom raising a teenager and a three year old. And almost a year after that, she was able to adopt the kids and make them her permanent family. She shares her beautiful story about transitioning to motherhood. 

We can plan and prepare and imagine what this new world of motherhood will look like for us, but there's only one guarantee: the element of surprise. In this episode, fourteen different moms share about how their expectations of motherhood met reality. 

Becoming a mother is hard. But at 14, Emily was still figuring out who she was, let alone how motherhood would factor into her identity.