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

When we imagine peer pressure, we imagine coming to the rescue by slapping drugs and alcohol out of our kids' hands after their friends undoubtedly tell them they should definitely try some. But peer pressure--who feels it, why, and exactly WHAT kids are being pressured to do--is a complex issue. In this episode, Amy and Margaret discuss: The biological imperative adolescents have to take risks in...

Ever have a kid with a long face in the back seat at school pickup because they were NOT chosen as "Student of the Week"? A listener emailed us to ask: How do you help your kid work through comparison and envy? My child is in 3rd grade and experiencing many emotions around "unfairness" and jealousy. Not so much about material things, like "this kid has X and I don't." More like "this kid is the te...

Britt Hawthorne is a mother, teacher, author, and anti-bias/antiracist facilitator. She partners with caregivers, educators, and families to raise the next generation of antiracist children. Her forthcoming book, Raising Antiracist Children: A Practical Parenting Guide, is for families ready to take action that'll bring change at home.  In this episode, we discuss: What becoming 'antiracist' reall...

In this listener-driven episode, we release a collective primal mom scream--from prairie dresses (no one looks good in them!) to thank you cards (I'm going to immediately throw it away) to school theme days (dress like your favorite endangered species???), there are plenty of things moms feel should be done away with for good. This week, you'll find you're not alone in your desire to get rid of th...

Bedtime can be smooth sailing or a waking nightmare, depending on the day. If you've ever experienced "bedtime creep" you will identify with this question for our Facebook group: How do you enforce bedtime? We have unwittingly slipped from 8pm to 9, 9:25 even, 9:45 pm. My 4-year-old often sees 10 pm! My 2-year-old had such an easy 8 pm bedtime until a few months ago. Now there are two tiny tots ru...

Cat and Nat have been friends since they were teenagers, but grew closer after becoming parents and confiding in each other about the more taboo topics of parenting. Once they decided to bring their hilarious conversations online, they became the hilarious women we all know as Cat and Nat. Cat and Nat host the "Mom Truths" podcast. Their videos have millions of views on YouTube, Facebook, and eve...

We’ve all witnessed other people's children behaving as if they were king or queen of the hill. Sometimes it's even our own kids who are behaving abominably at Applebee's. But what exactly makes a kid "spoiled"? Conversely, what’s the opposite of spoiled, and how do we raise those kids? We unpack this loaded term in this week’s episode and talk about how our own experiences have shaped our opinion...

At some point most kids will deal with a bully. But what happens when the bully is your kid's former friend? A listener wrote in to ask: At what point, if ever, do I attempt to help my eight-year-old kid with a conflict he is having with another boy in our neighborhood? The other boy's a year older and they've known each other since they were toddlers. They don't go to the same school, so they don...

This week we're talking with Bobbi Rebell, author of the new book Launching Financial Grownups: Live Your Richest Life by Helping Your (Almost) Adult Kids Become Everyday Money Smart.  Bobbi is also the host of the "Money Tips for Financial Grownups" podcast. Money can be a difficult subject to broach with kids for a number of reasons. So how do we break the ice? And what is different about our ch...

“God never gives you more than you can handle.” “Look on the bright side.” “It could be worse.” These are platitudes we’ve all heard and we all know are (to say the least) less than helpful. So why do so many of us feel a need to put a good spin on things when disaster strikes, and how do we break out of that habit? We talk about our own experiences with toxic positivity, what we’ve learned from t...

Water + soap + wriggly bodies = a giant puddle on the bathroom floor! And that's when the kids LIKE taking baths. What if they absolutely dread it? This this week's question comes from Lauren on our Facebook page: Tips for a 4 year old who legit PANICS about getting his hair washed. How can we make this better? At this point we are washing his hair like once a month because it’s so bad. It seems l...

Abby Medcalf is the author of the #1 Amazon best-seller, “Be Happily Married, Even if Your Partner Won’t Do a Thing,” and the host of the “Relationships Made Easy” Podcast. She talks in this Fresh Take about how competition mindsets damage relationships and what couples can do instead to be successful partners and co-parents. In this episode , Abby explains: What it really means for your partner t...

"My kid says she's dating someone, and she's 9!" Before you send in the cavalry, take a second to learn about all of the different ways kids express affection for one another and how to talk to them about it. We may want to learn the income, prospects, and favorite color of the crush in question, but sometimes it really is okay for kids to have secrets and feel independent in that regard. In this...

Here at What Fresh Hell we say there's no reason for anyone to comment on another person's size in a conversational setting. Ever. Including women who are (or who might appear) pregnant, and also including babies and kids who might appear either small or big for their chronological age. The latter is a course correction a lot of us might need to consider. What's the harm in saying a sweet little g...

Sara Dean is the host of The Shameless Mom Academy podcast, which inspires women and moms to live bigger, bolder, and braver #everydamnday. In this episode, we discuss how to turn our struggles into strengths why self-care is a basic human need how to "play bigger" and be a leader in your life, even when you are home with kids Connect with Sara at www.shamelessmom.com in her Facebook Group: www.sh...

Is it rational to still be mad about that time in second grade when the kid right in front of you took the last sprinkles at the ice cream social? Is it reasonable to think just a little less of your childhood friend for serving Chex Mix at his wedding? Ours is not to reason why. This episode isn't here to tell you whether you all should be maintaining these grudges so carefully. It's here to hold...

Listeners have been discussing their trips to Disney World on the What Fresh Hell Facebook Group, and Jillian posed this question: "I’d love to hear a Disney episode: if you’ve been, if you are Disney people who go frequently, or are you a one and done type or a 'that’s a hard no' type?" Good timing! Margaret recently took her family for their "one and done" trip to Disney World. The biggest takea...

Our society connects thin bodies not just with better health, but with greater happiness. And many of us have been duped into believing that the rewards of eternal thinness are available to anyone who "eats right" and tries hard enough. But teaching our children "intuitive eating" suggests a different path: putting our kids' relationship with food and their bodies and their mental health on the fr...

We know we have to be our kids’ soft place to fall. We understand why they absolutely fall apart after a long day at school. But does it really have to be Mom who always gets the worst of it?  Our listener Michelle wrote in to say: I have been pondering something I call the "Safe Space Paradox,” or why children behave so differently around their primary caregiver. I am repeatedly told by grandpare...

Does your kids' chatter in the back seat work your last nerve? You may identify with this week's question: I feel like your wisdom could help me with the dreaded evening commute. I have a job that requires me to be on. And at the end of the day, I really need a moment of silence to re-become normal. Trouble is, the kid pickup and drive home is on me. And at the exact moment I need to hear myself t...

Taylor Harris is a writer and mom of three living in Pennsylvania. Her first book, THIS BOY WE MADE: A Memoir of Motherhood, Genetics, and Facing the Unknown, is the story of A Black mother bumping up against the limits of everything she thought she believed—about science and medicine, about motherhood, and about her faith—in search of the truth about her son. Taylor says her memoir is "about a da...

This week we're discussing whether these parts of our lives (then as children, now as parents) are better then or better now: Halloween costumes holidays at school jeans what's for lunch cleaning the house Loved this episode? Listen to this Part One, in which we consider everything from maternity clothes to snow days: https://www.whatfreshhellpodcast.com/better-then-or-better-now/ And here's a lin...

This week's question comes from Sheila: "I have a 15-month-old and an almost 3-year-old. The 3-year-old has been in a toddler bed in his own room since he was 18 months old. The 15-month-old sleeps in a crib in a separate room. How do I get both boys to sleep in the same room without risking one waking the other either in the middle of night or way too early in the morning? When is the right age t...

Evan Kyle Berger and Kevin Laferriere, better known as "The Dumb Dads," are stay-at-home dad comedians who've been featured on Momsplaining with Kristen Bell, Ellen, Today and Good Morning America for their social media sketch comedy. In addition to their own social pages, they make content for Bubble, a channel on EllenTube. Margaret, Evan, and Kevin talk about finding the funny in parenting, the...

What’s no longer interesting to you? How has your life been improved simply by no longer caring about something the world definitely thinks you should?  The key here is no longer interesting. James Bond movies and auto parts probably never made the list in the first place. We’re talking stuff you turned your back on after having cared perhaps a little too much. Which isn’t to say you don’t get pus...