The Irish Mummy Podcast | Work Life Balance

Today we are met with Roseanna Ruane, mother of Saoírse, and she tells us the amazing story of her daughter’s experience dealing with osteosarcoma, and how strong she has been after losing her leg. Roseanna talks about how her daughter’s diagnosis and trial have affected her, and what she has gone through as the mother of someone struggling with cancer. She tells us about wanting to have another b...

This is a topic we feel is so important. Over the years Rosie has spent a lot of time with other mums and she was just thinking about the differences between them. When you improve the mental health of the mother, the quality of life for the children will automatically improve as well. The way we parent and approach parenting really comes from our deep held beliefs, which certainly end up translat...

Adam starts off this episode by reading a very powerful story that he heard the other day and absolutely loved. It speaks of a father who, after a long day, gets angry at his son for misbehaving and sends him straight to bed. The father then goes to bed and feels bad for being so harsh, and then he has this dream that impacts him deeply. We discuss the reasons why we need to let our kids be kids a...

All parents think that they fail and ask themselves questions such as “Am I an imposter?” or “Do my kids listen?” or just find themselves giving negative self-talk. Your kids often don’t live up to their full potential until you’re not around. Generally it’s when you’re not there that they’ll think of that thing you were trying to teach them and they’ll live it. Parenting is one of the hardest thi...

We wanted to do an episode on this subject today because it’s so often a difficult topic to understand in what way to communicate about it to each other and other people. We really felt we wanted to share about a recent miscarriage that we had and the realizations that came from it. We also feel doing this podcast can be a sort of therapy session as we talk through the issues we’ve faced and we ho...

This is such a tricky topic as it has so many different aspects to it. Devices are like a double edged sword because they’re so powerful for a lot of good reasons, but that same power makes them dangerous for other reasons. Each parent or couple needs to assess their own individual family needs and make sure they’re setting their own boundaries that will best fit for their family. Different kids w...

We’re coming up in August on 12 years of being married and wanted to give some tips of things we’ve learned over these years together. Adam states that if he had to go back in time, he would communicate differently, even when he was tired and didn’t want to listen, he would never take Rosie for granted, and then Rosie suggests she would have done regular date nights. We never went on a honeymoon,...

Rosie describes the types of friends that mothers need are people who are in the flow, which means mums who are part of that constant movement of the family from their various activities, meals, and responsibilities. You might start out in a marriage with the same friend group you had when you were single and no one has any kids yet, but as soon as someone has a kid, the whole dynamic of your frie...

You often never know what you say as a parent until you hear your kids saying it, and then you ask yourself where on earth you got that from and realize that you say that because somebody said it to you. You need to create a space for your children to be creative because when you set the word “No” as par for the course, your children will start to go around your authority and sneak things, or do w...

In this episode we talk about some more serious things that might not be so suitable for younger ears, so just take caution as you listen. One thing we have learned as we’ve gone through adulthood is that many people had serious things happen to them when they were little, and then kept it as a secret all the way through adulthood before they told anyone. One thing we love to say to the kids is “J...

This past week we got to celebrate the 4th of July and with that came a lot of fun activities with the family and just enjoying time together doing the various things we’ve done, but of course things around the house have gone to mayhem in terms of house work, laundry, etc. We have realized that as we have prioritized spending time with our children, especially Rosie as she has built and run her b...

The inspiration for this episode came because Adam has on our Traeger 3 racks of ribs and started thinking about every Sunday and how we have a special lunch on this day each week. We get out of church, then usually eat around 3 pm and the kids just know that this is our time to be together and have something special for lunch. Not only does having these type of meals bring our own family together...

This is an important topic for us. We have recently been looking into this and have learned that depression can come from a lack of hope and sadness can come from a lack of options, which are 2 very similar things. There are 3 things that everyone needs, which are 1) something to do, 2) someone to love, and 3) something to hope for. “Would someone who would achieve that do what I’m doing? Or Dress...

Rosie has a super power for dealing with tantrums and fighting, but Adam compares himself to putting gasoline on the fire, or even the fire itself, or the fire that matches the wood, gasoline, and TNT when it comes to dealing with these outbursts. Different kids have different love languages and you therefore have to treat each kid accordingly in order to have the best outcome with their behavior....

In this episode we’re not talking about your kids having poor communication, but about when we as parents just make a mess of something. Sometimes we are able to hold our cool until a certain point, and then it becomes really hard to maintain that level of composure. Accountability, compassion, empathy, and getting down at your kids’ level are all a part of being the right parent for your kids. Wh...

This topic today came about because Rosie was talking to a good friend of ours about schooling options like public school, private school, and home school. He told us an interesting concept that you don’t want to be one of those parents that denies your children access to something like sugar cereals, and then they go to a friend’s house and scarf that kind of thing because they’ve been so deprive...

Rosie was talking to a good friend of ours who happens to be a marriage counselor and she asked him what a common theme is that he sees in his office. He said that women are complex and that they get divorced for complex reasons, but he said for men it’s very simple. Men want to be touched and they want to be appreciated. He said even if a man isn’t touched but still appreciated, he would stay in...

When you’re in a funk, you have to fill yourself up with gratitude, which is not as simple as getting a fuel nozzle jammed into your fuel tank and filling it up. The price you have to pay for that is being open and humble, and walking away from pride. Sometimes we can’t choose our own circumstances or how other people treat us, and certain situations may be thrust upon us that are completely out o...

We’re excited to talk about this topic because we discuss it a lot. Some organizations or groups can be really well put together, but if they have just one sour individual, this can taint someone’s whole impression of that group or organization. So many people will base their whole experience on one bad interaction even after having a really good experience up until that point. You can help your c...

Today we have a really beautiful and challenging topic, which is the importance of having a soft heart vs a hard heart. There are different types of hard heartedness, like some people might show it through anger and getting mad, while others might just shut down and not want to communicate or cooperate with those with whom they are interacting, or being numb and not feeling anything/experiencing a...

Adam felt inspired to talk about this today because he and Patty were away last Friday and Saturday and had a really tough time in a great way. They were out hunting in the mountains with a guide, but the guide lost his GPS, so he had to go back and search for it while Adam and the kids were left alone for a bit, which is when they came upon some Native American site with a bunch of arrowheads tha...

This topic idea came from a really good conversation Adam had with a friend the morning before we recorded this episode. This friend told Adam that he knows people in the same career and one of them will be really happy in that field while the other is completely miserable and he has found that it’s not what you do, but the way you do it that will make the difference. They were talking about some...

We collide intermittently in our marriage and have realized that if we’re growing really quickly and we’re trying to up-level, often there’s a belief that needs to shift and the only way that the belief can come up is if you come up ahead. One of the best things of our marriage has always been our communication and we will often check each other. So many couples get to that point where someone nee...

We recently just got back from a holiday with 5 little people, so today we talk about how to simplify holidays. Rosie gives some great packing tips to help you, especially if you have multiple little ones to worry about. We went with two suitcases for 7 individuals, which we did so we could focus more on hangers instead of bags to help organize things better, especially when clothes are dirty. It’...

We wanted to discuss this topic following Mother’s Day, which we celebrated because we totally forgot about Irish Mother’s Day. Rosie went out on a solo retreat all day the other day, which she found to be very rejuvenating. We’ve made a realization that it’s easy to expect ourselves as adults to be able to understand and regulate emotions, but with kids, it’s often not at all that way as they hav...