Very Good Enough

This week we invite Dr. Sam Rader to teach us about the specific developmental needs children have in their newborn, infant and toddler windows so that we can confidently meet them. After many years as a clinical psychologist, Dr. Sam developed her own healing modality called Source Code which helps adults shift out the negative patterns created in their own early childhoods and she has a lot of w...

This week's listener question: "I am on the cusp of starting as a preschool teacher. I have over 8 years of teaching under my belt and the youngest so far has been this past year as a 1-3 grade art teacher. Recently, the preschool teacher offer fell into my lap and I’m taking it and not without a bucket of nerves. Having my own toddler I know how amazing and tricky this age group can be....

This episode was a masterclass in transitions for US - we set out to talk about how to manage emotional life transitions and then we were interrupted and had to handle real-time transitions 3 times during this recording! If you are facing a major life transition and feeling big feelings about it, this one is for you. We explore why transitions are so hard, all the fear as we approach the new thing...

This week's listener question: "Am I still a good mother if I don't want to be a stay-at-home-mom?" Join ⁠Very Good Mothers Club⁠ to be a part of our community and join our live monthly calls (4th Tuesday of every month)! Find Jess at ⁠Jessica Hover⁠ on Youtube and ⁠@jess_hover ⁠on Instagram Find Layne ⁠@enquiryco⁠ on Instagram If you have a question for the podcast, send either...

Today Layne asks Jess all about her birth stories. We talk about how it feels when childbirth doesn't go as planned and how different every single birth story is. Jess shares about the difference between her first birth and her second, her reasons for medicated vs. unmedicated births and what it was like to be pregnant overseas. She explains the how and why of changing doctors in the middle of...

This week's listener question: "Do I have ADHD?" This question came from our friend on Instagram but we've also been hearing from friends in real life and seeing lots of adult ADHD content across social media. Tune in to hear what we think about it... HERE is the link to the podcast episode Jess references in this conversation. Join  ⁠Very Good Mothers Club⁠  to be a part of our...

This week we welcome our first guest on the pod! Dani Roy is perinatal nutritionist who Layne has worked with to manage her depression and anxiety. She specializes in the time period two years before getting pregnant through two years postpartum. Dani walks us through the connection between your mental health and the foods you eat. She teaches us how to avoid postpartum depletion and how to direct...

This week's listener question: "My son just turned three...It's as if he's demon possessed. Like, full on terror 🤣. Super rough with friends, animals, etc. But I don't think he's trying to hurt anyone, he's just CRAZY. Help!" Join  ⁠Very Good Mothers Club⁠  to be a part of our community and join our live monthly calls (4th Tuesday of every month)! Find Jess at  ⁠...

Welcome back! We are kicking off this season by exploring how to stop judging yourself and start enjoying the journey of parenting. We get into how your own childhood affects your parenting, how to let go of the need to perform perfectly and why it's okay to make mistakes with your kids. We talk about why milestones don't matter, why you should let your kids fail and how to build resilienc...

Jess shares her personal story of navigating the identity shift from professional life into motherhood. We discuss ways women lose themselves in motherhood, why we put ourselves last and how we can rediscover a sense of self. We talk about why pursuing your own passions actually makes you a better mom and how to value yourself as a PERSON who is also a mother. Thank you all for listening to Season...

Marriage is hard. You can't see the end from the beginning and sometimes the middle is "meh." Jess has been married for 13 years, Layne for 6, and we have a lot to learn if we want to stay married for the rest of our lives. In this episode, we share our experiences so far of dealing with unrealistic expectations about how love and marriage would feel, overcoming codependency in our r...

This week Jess surprises Layne with a Q&A style quiz guaranteed to make two people fall in love. It sparks all kind of cool tangents, including: how famous is too famous, what to do if a friend steals your baby name, how to remember your childhood, rehearsing telephone calls ahead of time, are audio messages annoying, prioritizing time as parents, Instagram ad shopping and is it a good idea to...

Sometimes we finish recording, set the mics down and THEN have the conversation of a lifetime. This audio-only episode is one of those "real talks" that we remembered to capture... Life is only your experience of life; if you miss the experience, you miss your life. Today we discuss how our children will remember us, ways to cultivate our inner lives, and how to value our OWN experience...

How can I be a loving mom (dad, parent, teacher) without getting burnt out? How do I teach my kids it's not ok to hit me? How can I get my child to eat the food I made when she says she doesn't like it? What if they cry for a long time? I'm worried we didn't bond enough when he was a baby - can I still say no or will that drive us farther apart? This episode drops in to the middle...

Before life with kids, we didn't know it was possible to be over-stimulated and completely BORED at the same time. There's so much to do, it's loud all the time, everyone wants something and yet...it's kind of the same thing over and over. Today we discuss why boredom is good for you (and for your kids). Jess and Layne explore ways to find your inspiration again and use it to bring...

Layne and Jess deep dive into what 1-year-olds are thinking and how they can learn to play independently so you can get a moment to yourself. We lay out strategies to make your home a “Yes Environment” for them to freely explore so your toddlers can become confident decision makers and creative thinkers. And we talk about the best way to praise and encourage kids to give them a growth mindset and...

Moms (maybe all women?) treat each other very badly and Jessica Hover hates it. She hates the "us vs. them" camps parents sort themselves into. She hates behind-the-back gossip and mom-shaming. She hates that mothers define themselves by what they are against. She hates it when parents steal each others' joy by saying, "Just you wait..." AND she has some ideas about how we...

Jess and Layne reveal their personal histories with depression (and some bonus mental health issues). Layne shares about how a life crisis led to healing from life-long pain, how nutrition healed her anxiety and how to talk to kids about the hard things you are going through. Jess walks us through the life transition and isolation in early motherhood that found her needing treatment at a mental fa...

Happy Valentines Day, podcast loves! We are back with season 2 and jumping right in with an episode all about RELATIONSHIPS. Inspired by a question about how to talk to your kids about divorce, Layne and Jess share about our own marriages, with their ups and downs. We tell the stories of how we met our husbands. We talk about the importance of flexibility in romantic relationships, how couples can...

To spread the Christmas cheer as far as possible, we filled this episode to brim with ALL listener questions! And they were good: Help! My three-year-old will always be an only child and they really, really, really can't share. Do you hold your tampon string to the side when you pee or change it every time? What do I do when my child favors me over my husband and it hurts his feelings? Budgeting t...

Yesterday was sweet babyhood and today is "the terrible twos." It literally happens overnight - and it just happened to Jess' daughter. We share stories about mucus and peas, compare the silliest things we've seen trigger huge tantrums and talk about why we actually deeply love two-year-olds. Layne lays out strategies for staying out of power struggles with your toddler while still holding good bo...

Introducing our JUICIEST (and longest) episode yet! We had neat and tidy plan for this topic which flew out the window the second we hit record. This conversation is nothing short of confessional – two new friends really telling each other truth about how they feel about the bodies they live in. We share stories about trying to relate to our mothers as little girls, teenage eating disorders, conta...

‘Tis the season to mute social media accounts whose perfect photos cause too many feelings (just until January, maybe). This week we talk about how to tap into your own desires for the season and ask, “What do I want this Christmas to look like?” We explore how to successfully make memories with your family and experience some magic with maximum joy and minimum effort. Layne lays out a plan for co...

We're stopping by for just a few minutes this Thanksgiving to offer some love and solidarity to those for whom holidays don't feel very celebratory. We are not strangers to loss or dysfunction and we know that grief can be a close friend this time of year. Layne reads a blessing from John O'Donahue and Jess offers encouragement to open ourselves to divine love, however that looks for each of us.&n...

Holidays belong to all of us and we want to make them meaningful for ourselves and our individual families, even within the context of our larger families and communities. Looking toward holidays, we often feel overwhelmed/unsure/anxious/ALL the feelings. These feelings are a message from inside begging us to get clear around our healthy boundaries and hold them for ourselves. This week we have a...