The Mom Hour

Do you have "mom mission statements"? Pillars or values that guide your parenting and ground your confidence when its shaken? We didn't - but now we do! In Episode 405 Meagan and Sarah offer up our personal motherhood mission statements by finishing the sentence  "As I mom I..." . Join us! LINKS MENTIONED: Sarah loves the book  Catastrophic Happiness  by Catherine Newman, a memoir a...

UR Cute. Be Mine. XOXO. Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone (and happy birthday to Sarah)! No better day than today to talk all things kids, crushes, and budding romance. Join us as we discuss parenting kids through crushes, romance, and relationships, how much our kids share with us about their love lives, what we think about adults projecting romance onto toddlers and preschoolers, and what we hope...

Accepting and embracing the body changes that come with motherhood and midlife isn’t easy – and it’s a challenge that listeners write to us about a lot. While the conversation is (and must!) be nuanced, and the prevailing wisdom on this topic constantly changing, today we’re taking it on the only way we know how: from personal experience. Join Meagan and Sarah for an honest exchange about what bod...

A peek into pantry cupboards reveals a lot about how a family lives and the season of life they’re in. Today Meagan and Sarah open our own pantry doors and chat about what we see: from dry goods staples to kid-approved snacks and some things that are “just for mom,” we’ve got small joys and pesky frustrations in the pantry – just like any other area of the house! We also discuss the “ingredient ho...

Big black trash bag energy is in full effect over here! In this episode Sarah is joined by contributor Joanna Martin for a conversation about how, why and what we are getting rid of this January. We talk strategic home resets, major junk-hauling, and tips for ongoing clutter maintenance. And while on the surface this episode is about physical stuff, we also acknowledge the emotional complexity tha...

Does solitude come naturally to your kids, or are moments of solo play far and few between? Meagan and Sarah read some research recently that challenged us to think about the importance of alone time, and whether our kids get enough. In this episode, we dive into our own childhood memories, how our children embrace (or run from) solitude, and how challenging it is to find that just-right balance....

With all the day-to-day planning required to run a household, it’s easy to put longterm planning on the back burner. Today Meagan and Sarah share lessons we’ve learned (or are still learning) that help us look ahead at a whole year, quarter, or month at a time. From knowing ourselves and our seasonal rhythms to figuring out where they keep next year’s school calendar, we’ve picked up a few things...

C-e-l-e-b-r-a-t-e good times, come on! Today’s episode is number 400! We can’t think of a better way to celebrate hitting a big podcast milestone than talking about how we honor birthdays and milestone celebrations in our families – especially as kids get older. Join Meagan and Sarah as we offer insight into making birthdays special for big kids, tweens and teens; how kids getting older hits us di...

New year, new you…or, maybe just a bit of new energy? Every January we are bombarded with content about goal setting, resolutions, simplifying things and planning out our calendar in detail for the entire year. And while some years January finds us ready to dive in head first, other years we need a bit of inspiration before getting our New Year’s juices flowing. In today’s episode, Meagan and Sara...

Laundry is is a constant: it’s truly with us every day, week, and month of the year. In this first episode of 2023, Meagan and Sarah focus in on the laundry systems and strategies that are working (or not) in our homes, plus our favorite products, the grossest things we deal with, what’s great (and weird) about our laundry rooms, and how seasons of life change the challenges of keeping up with the...

As work-from-home moms, we’re perpetually seeking comfort and warmth during the winter months – stopping JUST SHY of living in pajamas 24/7. If your cozy winter wardrobe needs an update or you’re itching to do some post-Christmas shopping, listen to Episode 397 for Meagan’s and Sarah’s cold-weather fashion faves. Join us! LINKS MENTIONED: Meagan’s Cozy Mentions Meagan’s loving her Vuori pants in a...

Running a full-time independent podcast company keeps us busy – so busy that we don’t often pause to let listeners in to how it all works! As we approach the end of 2022, Meagan and Sarah share what’s up behind the scenes at The Mom Hour. We start with a lightning round of frequently asked questions (how’d we meet? do we fight? how does the podcast make money?) and move into bigger thoughts about...

You’ve got holiday parenting questions, and Meagan and Sarah have answers. In this very merry Listener Questions episode, we tackle things like how to make the magic happen for your littles while traveling and spending Christmas at grandparents, how to coordinate and facilitate sibling gift giving, how to keep a curious kitten (or two) out of the tree (this is our reality this year!) and suggestio...

Got resentment? Managing anxiety? Filled with hope? You’re not alone. The holidays provide a colorful snack platter of emotions – many of which we experience within a single day (or even moment!). Today it’s our honor to bring you the voices of eight moms, each of whom explores a different holiday feeling: anticipation, overwhelm, nostalgia, grief, anxiety, wonder, resentment and hope. In addition...

Planning a festive, event-filled holiday season but worried about having the budget to make it all come together? Meagan and mom-of-four (and regular contributor) Lisa Payne join forces in today’s episode to share how we stretch our budgets in order to create all the behind-the-scenes magic that takes place in our divorced households with large broods. Join us for all our best tricks (and our Mom...

“Mom, is Santa Jesus’s grandpa?” If you’ve found yourself in the (somehow surprising?) position of Adult In Charge Of The Holidays, you too might be on the receiving end of kids’ questions about what’s going on, exactly, with all these rituals and traditions. The answers don’t always come easy, because even as adults it’s not always obvious how (or whether) to carry our own family of origin’s trad...

Planning, shopping, wrapping… Oh My!  Today we’re featuring YOUR genius House Rules for gifting and giving this holiday season. We chat creative ways for extending the fun on the big day (without more buying), self care for mom after a wrapping marathon, what Santa brings (and doesn’t), how to handle extended family gift giving, AND gifts from the cat (yep, you read that correctly). Join us!...

Can’t we all just get along? (Or maybe, more accurately: Can ANYONE, EVER, just get along?) From playground drama to cousin power dynamics, sibling bickering to neighborly awkwardness, there’s no avoiding relationship challenges as families grow, change, and evolve. Today’s episode brings together some of the common questions we’ve gotten from listeners over the years about helping kids learn to p...

The toy catalogs have arrived and the lists are being made! It’s normal for kids to wish and want all season long, and it’s ALSO normal for all those “gimmies” to get on parents’ nerves (or make us worry that we’re raising entitled kids!). In today’s episode, Meagan and Sarah talk about what it looks like to help kids cultivate gratitude (it’s a long game, trust us), how to allow them to hope and...

Trader Joe’s. Yoga. Book Club. Cute boots and crunchy leaves. Today Meagan and Sarah just want to know: “Are we basic?” Join us for a fun More Than Mom episode with deep thoughts on this totally fluffy topic, including a look back at different eras in our lives when we’ve been trend-averse and other times when we’ve embraced mainstream culture. We talk about how it’s not as easy as it sounds to “l...

Being sandwiched between the littles and the grandparents who love them isn’t always easy – and there’s no one right way to do it! Today we’re tapping into the tips, advice and wisdom of our community on a topic we’ve had a lot of request for: facilitating and nurturing grandparent-grandkid relationships. In this Episode, Meagan and Sarah share practical things moms can do to facilitate the relati...

If you’ve been listening to this podcast for any length of time you know that Meagan’s harbored some serious homesteader fantasies since her early 20s. Nearly 25 years after Meagan’s oldest was born, she’s finally living outside the city limits, and slowly making her “Little House on the Prairie homestead dreams” from long ago come true (well, sort of!). In this episode, Meagan interviews Kendra M...

Million dollar sick-kid question: “are they going to school today, or not?”! After two fall seasons impacted by pandemic schooling in all kinds of ways, Fall 2022 appears to be The One Where The Children Are Sick ALL THE TIME. In today’s episode Sarah and regular contributor Jayme validate (and commiserate) about the plight of kids picking up every possible virus this fall, and offer practical tip...

It’s no secret that Meagan and Sarah can both get pretty into personality tests, particularly the Enneagram. In this fun More Than Mom we have an in-depth conversation about personalities in general (not just the types and tests!), especially as they relates to our significant others (and how they do or do not mesh with ours at times). We discuss how our different personalities play out in our rel...

From Halloween through New Year’s we’re given opportunities to create new traditions and fulfill holiday wishes – sometimes of our own design and, increasingly as kids get older, sometimes at our kids’ behest. This week Meagan and Sarah talk about the bell curve of holiday parenting: the early influence we have over just how things look and what fun is had, the middle dip as we learn to let go and...