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Breaking Down Parenting: A ParentNormal Podcast

Breaking Down Parenting: A ParentNormal Podcast is a show that’s for imperfect parents by imperfect parents. Hosted by humorist and imperfect parent of three Chris Cate, every episode breaks down a topic that causes parents to break down, such as putting kids to bed, potty training, the terrible twos, homework, family communication, clothing, discipline, cleaning up, cooking for kids, etc.

The mission of the show is to help parents laugh when they want to cry. By the end of each topic breakdown, parents will hopefully realize they aren’t alone in their struggles and that the craziness all parents go through is actually quite funny when it’s looked at in the right light.

Longtime listeners will know the show began as The ParentNormal Podcast. For nearly 100 episodes, it featured celebrity interviews, parenting fails and even a few skits. All of those episodes are still available, but the best is yet to come.

Breaking Down Parenting: A ParentNormal Podcast is diving deeper than ever into the crazy realities of parenthood with more stories and hilarious confessions from real parents all over the world.

Latest Episodes:

Ep. 66 Interview with HGTV star Josh Temple, host of House Crashers, America's Toughest Jobs, Ultimate Treehouse & Backyard Nation Mar 02, 2017

Show notes

Josh Temple, host of the popular HGTV show House Crashers, is this week's featured guest. In recent years, Josh has also hosted America's Toughest Jobs on NBC, Ultimate Treehouse on the Discovery Channel and Backyard Nation for TLC.

What makes Josh a great host of House Crashers is that he's not only entertaining, he is also a real licensed contractor. But since this host, me, doesn't know much about home improvement, in our conversation I made sure to ask him for easy home improvement tips. We also talked about how he got into doing home improvement projects and how to get kids interested in architecture and engineering.

Behind the Scenes: When I interviewed Josh, we were both at the Dad 2.0 Conference in San Diego, so there is a little bit more noise in the background than usual.

Ep. 65 Interview with Lev Grossman, author of The Magicians and book critic for Time Feb 22, 2017

Show notes

Lev Grossman, author of The Magicians Trilogy, which is now a TV series in its second season on SyFy is the featured guest this week. Lev is also the book critic and lead technology writer for Time, but I think he would be most proud to tell you that he is a father of three kids.

In our conversation, we talk about why the fantasy genre and books like Harry Potter and The Chronicles of Narnia have such a wide appeal to audiences young and old. We also talk about what it's been like to see his characters from The Magicians reimagined for TV on SyFy, what books he has enjoyed introducing to his kids and what we can expect from his next book about King Arthur's knights after the collapse of Camelot.

Ep. 64 Interview with Heather Armstrong of Dooce, "Queen of the Mommy Bloggers" Feb 13, 2017

Show notes

Heather Armstrong, known by her fans simply as Dooce, is this week's featured guest. She is not only one of the most successful bloggers of all time, she is a mother of two, a New York Times bestselling author and she has even been the subject of a question on Jeopardy that went like this:

Rhyming with "Juiced", it's "to lose one's job because of one's blog", coined by blogger Heather Armstrong

The correct answer was, "What is Dooced?" - because, as you might infer, Heather famously lost her job because of her blogging about it.

In an article by the New York Times that called her the Queen of Mommy Bloggers, it said she had 100,000 visitors to her site daily. So I think blogging has worked out pretty well for her.

In our conversation, we'll talk about how blogging has changed since the early days, how bloggers can use their platform to promote positive messages, how Heather helped influence the creation of Twitter and how her readers helped her with her postpartum depression.

Ep. 63 Best of the Parenting Fails Part 3 (Top 10 Fails) featuring Jeff Kinney, Dave Barry, Jeannie Gaffigan, Hillary Frank, Adam Mansbach and Michele Lepe Feb 06, 2017

Show notes

Here are the top ten parenting fails shared on the podcast so far! Two weeks ago, we started the countdown at number 30 and counted down to 21. In last week's episode, we counted down from 20 to 11. And while all of those stories were great, and I hope you go back and listen to them if you haven't already, this episode features the best of the best parenting fails shared on the podcast.

I realize that "best" is not really the best word when you're talking about parenting fails, because one parenting fail isn't better than another one - which made ranking these stories quite difficult. But I really think you will get something more than just comic relief by listening to these top 10 stories.

The takeaway I hope you get isn't that mistakes are no big deal. It's that we all make mistakes, and that there's no such thing as a perfect parent. And that being the case, it's much healthier to be able to laugh at yourself than beat yourself up - not to mention much more entertaining.

I'll continue to ask guests to share parenting fails, but here are the storytellers of the best fails shared on the podcast so far.

10. Kristen Chase, half of the duo from Cool Mom Picks, who were interviewed in episode 45 of the podcast.

9. Greg Pembroke, author of Reasons My Kid is Crying, who was interviewed in episode 4 of the podcast.

8. Dave Barry, Pulitzer Prize winning columnist and author of more than 30 books, who was interviewed in episode 51of the podcast.

7. Hillary Frank, host of the Longest Shortest Time podcast, who was interviewed in episode 18 of the podcast.

6. Deva Dalporto, the YouTube sensation whose videos about parenthood have been downloaded millions of times, who was interviewed in episode 15 of the podcast.

5. Jill Smokler, the mom who created the Scary Mommy website, who was interviewed in episode 21 of the podcast.

4. Jeff Kinney, author of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books, who was interviewed in episode 53 of the podcast.

3. Adam Mansbach, author of the #1 New York Times Bestseller Go the F**k to Sleep and the book You Have to F**king Eat,who was interviewed in episode 33 of the podcast.

2. Jeannie Gaffigan, comedian Jim Gaffigan's writing partner who also happens to be his wife and was his co-writer on the Jim Gaffigan Show, who was interviewed in episode 38 of the podcast.

1. Michele Lepe, best known as Nina on the Good Night Show on Sprout. It's not easy to rank parenting fails, but I knew this story would be number one as soon as I decided to do a countdown. I was so grateful when Michele agreed to be my first guest ever on the podcast. It helped launch the show with a great interview and she knocked it out of the park when she shared her parenting fail.

Ep. 62 Best of the Parenting Fails Part 2 featuring Nick Thune, Ilana Wiles, Greg Page, Nate Bargatze, Amy McCready and more Jan 30, 2017

Show notes

This is Part Two in the three part series of the best parenting fails shared on the podcast so far. I realize that "best" is not really the best word to use when you're talking about parenting fails, because one parenting fail isn't better than another one, but it is fun to do "best of" countdowns. So, the takeaway I hope you get from listening to this series isn't that mistakes are no big deal. It's simply that we all make mistakes, and that there's no such thing as a perfect parent.

Make sure you subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts, so you don't miss the Top 10 Parenting Fails next week. As for parenting fails 11 through 20, here are the parents who made the list:

20. Amy McCready, the founder of Positive Parenting Solutions and author of The Me, Me, Me Epidemic, who was interviwed in episode 47 of the podcast.

19. Nick Thune, the actor and stand up comedian who has a Netflix special titled Folk Hero and a Seeso special titled Good Guy, who was interviewed in episode 6 of the podcast.

18. Sarah Maizes, Vice President of Children's Programming for The Jim Henson Company author of Got Milf?: The Modern Mom's Guide to Feeling Fabulous, Looking Great, and Rocking A Minivan, who was interviewed in episode 41 of the podcast.

17. James Breakwell, the father of fourdaughters known by his 700,000 followers on Twitter as @xplodingunicorn, who was interviewed in episode 12 of the podcast.

16. Ilana Wiles, the mom behind the Mommy Shorts website and author of The Mommy Shorts Guide to Remarkably Average Parenting, who was interviewed in episode 54 of the podcast.

15. Greg Page, the founding member of the Wiggles also known as the Yellow Wiggle, who was interviewed in episode 8of the podcast.

14. Nate Bargatze, a comedian who has mutliple stand up comedy specials and has appeared on Conan and the Tonight Show multiple times, who was interviwed in episode 3 of the podcast.

13. Liz Gumbinner, half of the two moms who started Cool Mom Picks and host the Spawned Podcast, who were interviewed in episode 45 of the ParentNormal Comedy Podcast.

12. Jen Mann, author of People I Want to Punch in the Throat, who was interviewed in episode 5 of the podcast.

11. Sarah Turner, author of The Unmumsy Mum, who was interviwed in episode 25 of the podcast.

Ep. 61 Best of the Parenting Fails Part 1 featuring Karen Alpert, Rosie Pope, Arianna Huffington, Asha Dornfest, Amy Bellgardt and more Jan 22, 2017

Show notes

Parenting fails are a such a big part of this podcast, I thought it would be fun to create a countdown of the best parenting fails shared on the show. Because who doesn't love a countdown?

Now, obviously, it is really strange to say one parenting fail is better than another. That's obviously not the case. But there have been some really entertaining stories shared on the show. Of course, like any countdown, there are probably some stories that should have made the list but didn't. And there are probably some stories ranked too high or too low.

The reality is that all of these stories are great for parents to hear, and the takeaway I hope you get from listening is that we all make mistakes, but it's better to laugh than get stressed out to the point of crying.

So this is part 1 of 3 episodes counting down the "best" parenting fails shared on the podcast. Parents in Part 1 of the countdown include:

30. Norine Dworkin-McDaniel, one of moms behind the Science of Parenthood book and website, who was interviewed in episode 9 of the podcast.

29. Karen Alpert, the New York Times bestselling author of I Heart My Little A-Holes and I Want My Epidural Back, who was interviewed in episode 31 of the podcast.

28. Rosie Pope, who starred in the Bravo Network's Reality Show Pregnant in Heels, who was interviewed in episode 30 of the podcast.

27. Mary Elizabeth Williams, author of A Series of Catastrophes and Miracles: A True Story of Love, Science and Cancer, who was interviewed in episode 35 of the podcast.

26. Brian Gordon, creator of the Fowl Language webcomic, who was interviewed in episode 29 of the podcast.

25. Arianna Huffington, co-founder and editor in chief of the Huffington Post, who was interviewed in episode 34 of the podcast.

24. Asha Dornfest, author of Parent Hacks: 134 Genius Shortcuts for Life with Kids, who was interviewed in episode 56 of the podcast.

23. Clint Edwards, author of This is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, who was inteviewed in episode 10 of the podcast.

22. Amy Bellgardt, the mom who runs Mom Spark, who was interviewed in episode 57 of the podcast.

21. Mike Spohr, editor of BuzzFeed Parents, who was interviewed in episode 36 of the podcast.

Ep. 60 Interview with Jennifer Lehr, author of ParentSpeak What's Wrong with How We Talk to Our Children and What to Say Instead Jan 12, 2017

Show notes

Jennifer Lehr, author of ParentSpeak: What's Wrong with How We Talk to Our Children--and What to Say Instead is the featured guest this week. In our conversation, Jennifer will explain what "parentspeak" is and why we should change some of the common phrases we use with our kids.

Many of the common phrases Jennifer says not to use are phrases I say to my kids all the time, including "You're so cute," "Be careful," and "Can you say thank you?" These are phrases I'll probably continue to use, for better or worse, but I do think Jennifer makes some good points about how they have the potential to send a different message than what was intended.

Listen to the episode and you be the judge of whether "parentspeak" is a problem, too politically correct or somewhere in between.

Ep. 59 Parenting Fails Vol. VII featuring interviews with Dave Barry, Jeff Kinney, Ilana Wiles, Asha Dornfest and Amy Bellgardt Dec 30, 2016

Show notes

This seventh edition of parenting fails shared on show reveal even the most talented parents aren't immune to parenting fails. Enjoy this episode knowing you aren't alone in your failures, so you might as well laugh at your circumstances rather than get stressed out to the point of crying.

Parents featured in this episode include:

Dave Barry, the Pulitzer Prize winning columnist and author of more than 30 books, who was interviewed in episode 51 of the podcast.
Jeff Kinney, author of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid book series, who was interviewed in episode 53 of the podcast.
Ilana Wiles, the mom behind the Mommy Shorts website and the author of The Mommy Shorts Guide to Remarkably Average Parenting, who was interviewed in episode 54 of the podcast.
Asha Dornfest, author of Parent Hacks: 134 Genius Shortcuts for Life with Kids, who was interviewed in episode 56 of the podcast.
Amy Bellgardt, the mom who runs Mom Spark, who was interviewed in episode 57 of the podcast.

Ep. 58 Parenting Fails Vol. VI featuring Dr. Robert Keith Wallace, Kristen Chase, Liz Gumbinner, Leslie Patricelli, Amy McCready and Richard Rende Dec 28, 2016

Show notes

For every parenting victory, there is a parenting fail - perhaps several. But rather than get stressed out to the point of tears, it's usually better to laugh about the madness of parenthood.

This episode is the sixth edition of parenting fails featuring parents who have appeared on the podcast to share their stories.

Parents featured in this episode include:

Dr. Robert Keith Wallace, author of Dharma Parenting, who was interviewed in episode 43 of the podcast.
Kristen Chase, half of the duo from Cool Mom Picks, who were interviewed in episode 45 of the podcast.
Liz Gumbinner, the other half of the Cool Mom Picks duo who were interviewed in episode 45 of the podcast.
Leslie Patricelli, the children's author and illustrator of popular books such as Potty, Yummy Yucky, Huggy Kissy and Big Little who was interviwed in episode 46 of the podcast.
Amy McCready, the founder of Positive Parenting Solutions and the author of The Me, Me, Me Epidemic who was interviwed in episode 47 of the podcast.
Richard Rende, a developmental psychologist and author of Raising Can-Do Kids who was interviewed in episode 48 of the podcast.

Ep. 57 Interview with Amy Bellgardt of Mom Spark about How to Make Six Figures a Year Blogging Dec 21, 2016

Show notes

Amy Bellgardt of MomSpark.net is this week's featured guest. If you're a blogger or have any aspirations to be a blogger, whether it's a blog about parenting or anything else, you're really going to enjoy this interview.

A couple of months ago, Amy wrote a post on her blog titled How to Make Six Figures a Year Blogging. I thought the idea of making six figures a year writing about one of your passions was incredible, so I invited Amy to be on the show to talk about creating a successful blog, building an audience, how social media can help you, how to connect with brands to monetize your site and about her own success story.

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