What Fresh Hell: Parenting, Relationships, and Making Life Better, with Two Funny Moms

This month's Deep Dive series is about flouting parenting rules and advice that don't work for us. Listen to a Spotify playlist of all the episodes in the series here. Are you a rule breaker or a rule follower? Are you married to your opposite? We're both rule followers, and when one builds a life with someone who sees the "NO DOGS IN THE LAKE" sign as an invitation to let the golden retriever go...

Judith Warner’s book AND THEN THEY STOPPED TALKING TO ME: MAKING SENSE OF MIDDLE SCHOOL investigates what can be a truly painful period in any adolescent's life. Warner explains that our "personal fable" is deeply affected by our own experiences during that developmental period, even if our memories may rely on flawed or incomplete information. That matters because it can affect how we parent our...

Every kid is afraid of something. Sometimes their fears make sense; sometimes their extreme anxiety over every ant that crosses their path can seem a little excessive. But our job isn't to make sure our kids never see ants; our job is to help them learn to navigate those feelings on their own. In this episode, Amy and Margaret discuss: Why kids facing their fears is an appropriate part of their em...

This month's Deep Dive series is about setting aside the parenting rules and advice that just don't work for us. Listen to a Spotify playlist of all the episodes in the series here. As soon as you become a mother, unsolicited advice-givers are everywhere, telling you to “sleep when the baby sleeps.” Or “it gets easier.” Or “enjoy every moment.” Out of all the advice (parenting and otherwise) that...

You hear that parenting teens is a wild ride. But as Amy Betters-Midtvedt, author of the new book YOU'LL MAKE IT (AND THEY WILL TOO), says, it can also be baffling: “So much weirdness comes when they go back-and-forth between staying their old selves and becoming their new ones. Conflict will suddenly flow out of nowhere over nothing.” But you'll make it. And they will too. Amy Betters-Midtvedt is...

It's easy to compare our parenting—often as measured by our kids' achievements—with their peers' achievements. As in, how other parents might be doing it better. This week, we're talking parenting tips for resisting “mompetition”— and how we can use comparison to create healthy perspectives instead of "compare and despair." Amy and Margaret discuss: Why competition is a biological imperative The e...

This month, we're doing a deep dive series into letting things go—arguments, unattainable standards, you name it! You can find the playlist with all of the episodes in the series here. It's hard to admit things aren't perfect. It's especially hard for moms. Psychologists Paul Hewitt and Gordon Flett described three types of perfectionism in the 1990s: self-directed (I must be a size 2), others-dir...

We know climate change affects not only our children's health but their future. So what can we as individuals do? Debra Hendrickson is a board-certified pediatrician practicing in Reno, Nevada, and a Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Nevada School of Medicine. She is also the author of the author of the new book THE AIR THEY BREATHE: A PEDIATRICIAN ON THE FRONT LINES OF CLIMATE...

What are the best things about having closely spaced siblings? What about farther apart? Siblings' closeness, amount of conflict, and relationships as adults are all affected by the age differences between them. In this episode, the listeners with closely spaced children tell us why that has worked for them (constant playmates) and not (constant bickering), while those with kids with larger age di...

This month, we're doing a deep dive series into letting things go—arguments, unattainable standards, you name it! You can find the playlist with all of the episodes in the series here. Having the same fight doesn’t mean your relationship is broken. But it is totally annoying. In this episode we discuss the modes of negativity at play when we repeat the same conflicts- and what we can do to break t...

Do you and your partner find yourselves talking past each other when arguing? Erin and Stephen Mitchell, authors of the new book TOO TIRED TO FIGHT, discuss how parenting can impact relationships (including their own!) and strategies to manage conflict and stay connected.  Erin and Stephen Mitchell are the cofounders of Couples Counseling for Parents, a company focused on providing access to resea...

Is "helicopter parenting" actually a definable thing? Or is it just what we call parents who are being annoying? Overparenting is something that it's easy to be judgey about in other people, and a lot harder to identify in ourselves. Parents have to help. It's what we're there for. So how do we manage without micromanaging? In this episode, we discuss: The conditions that trigger parental anxiety...

This month, we're doing a deep dive series into letting things go—arguments, unattainable standards, you name it! You can find the playlist with all of the episodes in the series here. What if we didn't let other people's judgments change our game plans—as women, as mothers, and as humans? We're wired to pay attention to what other people think. There's a reason those judgments can be painful. Are...

Is screen use a daily battle of wills in your house? Emily Cherkin, author of the new book "THE SCREENTIME SOLUTION: A Judgment-Free Guide to Becoming a Tech-Intentional Family," explains how to model a healthy relationship with tech for our kids. Emily Cherkin, MEd., consults with parents, offers school presentations and professional development training, and brings her tech-intentional approach...

Does it seem like just as much work to leave your kids behind for a couple of days as not to go in the first place? Do your instructions for family operational procedures during your absence run more than five pages?  Getting away from our kids—for work, for the weekend, for a friend’s 40th—isn’t just good for us. It’s also an opportunity for our kids to realize that “only Mommy” stuff they pull w...

This month, we're doing a deep dive series into letting things go—arguments, unattainable standards, you name it! You can find the playlist with all of the episodes in the series here. When you're locked in a battle of tug-o-war it can be extremely exhausting to keep up the fight. But there is a solution: dropping the rope. It may seem counterintuitive, but when you're in the middle of a conflict...

Jo Piazza wears a lot of hats: author, podcast host, award-winning journalist, mom. In this episode we talk about them all! We're big fans of her sexy thriller THE SICILIAN INHERITANCE and her podcast Under the Influence (now part of Adalyst Media!) Jo's interests are wide-ranging and so is this conversation. We cover: How Jo's experience solving a century-old murder in her family inspired her boo...

Time for some easy wins! Here of some of our (and our listeners') favorite hacks for naptime diapers laundry kitchen sibling squabbles and General Sanity Preservation. This stuff really works! The Lazy Genius (Kendra Adachi's) principle: Decide Once What Fresh Hell Podcast is going on tour across the Northeast US this fall! Join us for a live version of the podcast and bring all your mom friends....

Danielle Friedman's recent New York Times article says it all: "The Constant Work to Keep a Family Connected Has a Name." That work is kinkeeping. Sociologist Carolyn Rosenthal defined kinkeeping as "someone who works at keeping family members in touch with one another." Every lucky extended family has a kinkeeper, and yes, it's usually a woman. Perhaps that's why the work of kinkeeping can be dis...

Margaret "Maggie" Quinlan and Bethany Johnson are the co-authors of the book You’re Doing it Wrong! Mothering, Media and Medical Expertise. This book investigates the history of mothering advice in the media, from the 19th century to today, and the processes by which mothering has been defined, from getting pregnant to being pregnant to giving birth to whether "that baby" needs a hat on. Like most...

What Fresh Hell Podcast is going on tour across the Northeast US this fall! Join us for a live version of the podcast and bring all your mom friends. We can’t wait to go back on the road! https://bit.ly/whatfreshhelltour Rooms where no one was allowed to go? Saving up phone minutes? Opening one kind of cereal at a time? What odd rules did we once live by that we can't imagine following now? Amy an...

What Fresh Hell Podcast is going on tour across the Northeast US this fall! Join us for a live version of the podcast and bring all your mom friends. We can’t wait to go back on the road! https://bit.ly/whatfreshhelltour Why is it that summer never seems to be the picture-perfect, sun-washed experience we want for our kids? Amy helps a listener ditch her mom guilt over not providing her kids with...

What Fresh Hell Podcast is going on tour across the Northeast US this fall! Join us for a live version of the podcast and bring all your mom friends. We can’t wait to go back on the road! https://bit.ly/whatfreshhelltour How can we be responsive, rather than reactive, when our child misbehaves? Chazz Lewis, host of the podcast Learning Curve with Mr. Chazz, explains practical steps for navigating...

What Fresh Hell Podcast is going on tour across the Northeast US this fall! Join us for a live version of the podcast and bring all your mom friends. We can’t wait to go back on the road! https://bit.ly/whatfreshhelltour Most of us have either experienced—or refereed—sibling rivalry. So what do we do when our kids are constantly at each other's throats? Why do they fight constantly, and how do we...

What Fresh Hell Podcast is going on tour across the Northeast US this fall! Join us for a live version of the podcast and bring all your mom friends. We can’t wait to go back on the road! https://bit.ly/whatfreshhelltour Parenting is a constant process of choosing the lesser evil. When it's stomach flu or Coxsackie, they're both bad, but when you're playing Would You Rather?, you've still got to p...