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

Fess up: everyone's got a Bad Mom Moment. Or twelve. We tend to hold these things really close, our shame rooted in deep certainty that no other mother has ever temporarily forgotten their baby in the toy aisle at Target. Guess what? You're not alone. Here are some of our listeners' Bad Mom Moments– and more than a few of our own. Our guest this week is Arianna Bradford, the brains behind The NYAM...

Every week Margaret or Amy answers one listener's most pressing question. This week Margaret answers the question, "I know it's silly but I'm really worried about being away from my child for three nights. How I can deal with this?" Submit your questions to: questions@whatfreshhellpodcast.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This extended pause has been really hard for some of our kids, and actually sort of good for others. For every lonely preschooler who just wants to finally have someone to play “bad guys” with, there’s a formerly rambunctious middle-schooler who became a real scholar without all the distractions of the in-person classroom.  And the happiest kids have sometimes surprised us. The family Eeyore is su...

Each week Amy or Margaret answers on listener's most pressing question. This week a listener asks: "Any thoughts on how to get my 8 year old son to listen to/ ead anything outside his go-to genre?" Amy suggests the "You Wouldn't Want To Be" series as particularly appealing AND educational for grade-schoolers... you can find those books here: https://www.youwouldntwantto.be/ Submit your parenting q...

No joke: this is a particularly anxiety-provoking time. And even if our kids are little, and we manage to keep the TV off most of the time, they're still picking up on a certain hum in the house, a new and different frequency.  But our job as parents is not to make it feel like like the pandemic, the social unrest, the climate change, and the coarsened social discourse of this moment isn't happeni...

Each week Margaret or Amy answers one listener's most pressing question. Today Margaret answers the question, "What can I do about my husband who gives terrible gifts?" Submit your questions to: questions@whatfreshhellcast.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Shutting it all down was definitely hard, but the parameters of the assignment were clear. Reopening is more like: do what you want when we think you can, or at least aren't fully convinced that you can’t. Most of us are probably going to need to leave our houses before vaccines are available at your neighborhood Walgreens. But how do we do that safely when kids touch seriously everything? When ma...

Each week Margaret or Amy answers a listener's parenting question. This week Amy answers the question, "How do I get my incredibly active 2 1/2 year old to stop when I tell her to?" Submit your parenting question– we might answer yours next! questions@whatfreshhellpodcast.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The idea that our kids are colorblind, and that we therefore should put off talking to our kids about race because they’re too young to understand its complicating factors, is wrong. And mothers of color could have told us that a long time ago. As parents, we should be talking about race with our kids early and often. Dr. Erin Winkler’s work shows that when parents are silent about race with our k...

Each week Margaret or Amy answers one listener's most pressing question. Today Margaret answers the question, "What should I do about my kids' troublesome coping mechanisms during the coronavirus outbreak?" Submit your questions to: questions@whatfreshhellpodcast.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Here comes the summer of nothing! For older kids, camps and sports leagues and internships and jobs are canceled. For little kids, even "Camp Grandma" isn't a sure thing this year. We usually look forward to summer as a lazy-living, sleep in and lie around break from our usual hectic lives. But our kids have already *had* three months of lying around doing nothing, and the thought of three more mo...

Each week Amy or Margaret answers one listener's most pressing question. Today Amy answers the question, "What can I do about my toddler who is giving a hard time to my older child?" Submit your question to: questions@whatfreshhellpodcast.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What’s the one thing that’s actually working right now?  Not grading on a curve, not a barely acceptable Band-Aid for these crazy times, but something you have found during these last months that you actually love and will totally keep doing?  Our listeners told us all the things, from walking the dog to Grateful Dad cover shows, that they’re doing by themselves, with a socially distanced friend,...

Each week Amy or Margaret answers one listener's most pressing question. This week Margaret answers the question, "What Do I Do With a Four Year Old Who is Making Bedtime Last Forever?" Send your questions to questions@whatfreshhellpodcast.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Potty training back-sliding? Pacifiers showing up at breakfast? Preschoolers in your bed? Tweens suddenly engaging in baby talk? Welcome to The Great Regression. It's no surprise that regressive behavior shows up in times of stress. Sometimes it's not as easy to spot, but whether it's more clingy behavior or more temper tantrums, regression is our kids' way of communicating that they are feeling i...

We're now on YouTube! Subscribe and catch our video shorts here: http://bit.ly/WFHyoutube After eight weeks in this new normal, our to-do lists have started to get a little lengthy. These days, we're all full-time stay-at-home AND work-at-home moms, and while the larger world seemed willing to let things slide for a while, we're feeling a lot more pressure to actually get stuff done. How do we get...

Every week Margaret or Amy answers one listener's most pressing question. Today Margaret tackles the question, "Should I sleep-train my baby while we're all stuck at home?" Submit your questions to: questions@whatfreshhellpodcast.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We asked all of you to tell us your “mom wins” since quarantine life started- the smaller, the better. We're all taking success wherever we can find it these days. Whether it’s synchronized napping, picky eaters trying meatballs, or a 5-year-old who finally slept past 7 a.m., we salute all these successes, no matter how miniscule. Thanks to all of you for making our own mothering journeys so full...

Each week Amy or Margaret answers a listener's most pressing question. This week Amy answers the question, "How can I help my three-and-a-half year old daughter who is having nightmares?" Submit your question to quesitons@whatfreshhellpodcast.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Six weeks in, and most of us are having a lot of trouble with what one of our listeners called this "very strange limbo." That listener asked in our Facebook group what she might do to make herself get off the couch, stop looking at her phone, maintain momentum. Because that is the usual goal: we all know that once we stop running and rest, we won't be able to run as far when we try again. A body...

Each week Amy or Margaret answers one listener's most pressing question. This week Margaret tackles the question, "What Can I Do About Relatives Who Constantly Want to FaceTime with My Kids?" Send your questions to: questions@whatfreshhellpodcast.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Back by popular demand: an all-new Quarantine Edition of What Kind of Monster? What kind of monster decides to go keto during a pandemic? Trades away toilet paper for sourdough starter? Finishes Mom’s chocolate stash, her razor-thin tether to sanity? Slices an avocado horizontally? Our listeners weigh in with the straws that will break their quarantine backs. It goes without saying that during the...

This week Amy answers a question from a listener whose 17 and 15-year-olds who are "finally starting to lose their minds" with this extended no-school lock down, and time away from their peers. Dr. Lisa D'Amour did an excellent interview on the NYT Book Review podcast on how to help teens through this moment- you can find it here: https://www.drlisadamour.com/2020/04/05/april-2020-parenting-under-...

As we round the curve into what’s been a full month of Uno, math worksheets, and never going anywhere, we’ve all learned a few things. Here are our stay-at-home revelations about our homes, our cooking, our relationships, and our kids. We’re undergoing a Big Reset about what our families “need,” whether it’s another box from Amazon, family dinner conversations, or maternal interference in sibling...

Each week Amy or Margaret answers a listener's most pressing question. This week Margaret answers the question, "What Should I Do When My Kid Won't Play Alone?" Send your questions to questions@whatfreshhellpodcast.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices