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Show Summary:
Addie Swartz has been focused on helping women come back from career breaks since before the concept of a meaningful “career break” was really a thing. Her own career has been closely tied to her life journey, including figuring out how to manage motherhood, maternity leave, and a career (Including starting a company while on maternity leave!).
We talked about the obstacles moms face when making decisions about their careers, and how ReacHIRE came from the desire to facilitate the process of coming back after a break. This discussion is so close to our hearts, and our mission for the Mom &… Podcast. If you’re considering a break, on a break, ready to come back, or just want to know more about any stage of taking a career break, give this one a listen.
Looking for The Definitive Return-to-Work Playbook? Click here!
Waiting on college news and getting annoyed by fussy parents in Facebook groups
More About Addie Swartz:
A serial entrepreneur, Addie created reacHIRE to build a systematic pathway for exceptional women to get back into the workforce. Prior to reacHIRE, she founded two companies at the intersection of media, technology and education.
Addie started her career at Bain & Co. She has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Inc., Working Woman Magazine, Child Magazine, Working Mother, Good Morning America, NPR and MSNBC. Addie also named to the Inc. Magazine 2021 Female Founders List in the category, “Lifted Other Women Up.”
Addie is a graduate of Stanford University, and received her MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. She’s also the proud mom of two daughters.
For more about ReacHIRE’s story, click here and visit the links below.
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Our delightfully happy intro and outro theme music, “We Will Get Through This” is performed by Young Presidents, and used under license from Shutterstock.
Transcript is auto-generated by a robot. Apologies in advance for misspellings or errors.
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Show Summary:
As we say in the intro to this episode, if you hang out on social media at all, you’ve probably laughed at something Meredith has posted. Her brand, Perfection Pending, is all about connecting with other parents around the realities – and absurdities – of life with children. Being a grown up and raising not-so-grown people is not easy, y’all.
We talked about her upcoming book, Mother Load, and how she wrote it through her depression. The conversation delves into dealing with mental health, from getting help to accepting and loving ourselves. We also talk about the nuts and bolts of writing, going back to school, and running over a cat. You just have to listen for more about that.
Meredith Ethington is a mother, author, and founder of the Perfection Pending blog, which presents mothers with encouragement, humor, and heart. Her debut book, Mom Life: Perfection Pending was published through Absolute Love Publishing and debuted online as the #1 choice in the motherhood category. She is the co-owner and editor at FilterFreeParents.com, and in 2017, Meredith was honored as the BlogHer Voices of The Year Award Winner for her piece on mental health, “Why I Take The Pill.”
Meredith resides in Salt Lake City, Utah, and you can find her on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, where she encourages mothers to laugh at themselves and admit that while parenting is the best thing ever, it’s also the hardest job on earth.
Please subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts! If you’re so inclined to give us a 5-star rating, we’ll love you forever. Who couldn’t use a little extra love?
Leave us a message – via voicemail or use our form – with your questions for experts, or suggestions for future episodes.
Check out our website, where you can find links to all the things!
Our delightfully happy intro and outro theme music, “We Will Get Through This” is performed by Young Presidents, and used under license from Shutterstock.
Transcript is auto-generated by a robot. Apologies in advance for misspellings or errors.
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Show Summary:
Our guest this week, Natalie Borrell, is a school psychologist and teen life coach. If you’re thinking that doesn’t sound like the typical Mom &… Podcast guest, you’d be right, and wrong. Everything Natalie teaches teens can also help adults.
This week’s needle-point-it-on-a-pillow moment was when Natalie shared one of her rules to live by: “Take care of your future self.” She taught us practical ways to take care of ourselves, with life hacks for overcoming procrastination and building resilience. Natalie has tips and tools for figuring out what you’re struggling with, why you’re struggling with it, and whether it’s something you can address by learning some coping tools, or if you need to seek professional help.
Natalie also shares some lessons learned in her entrepreneurial journey. Any listeners who have their own business, or want to start one, will get some wise advice.
Natalie is the Founder of Life Success for Teens. She coached high school and competitive cheerleading for 8 years and this is where she realized that she had a gift for connecting with teenagers and motivating them to be the best version of themselves. She has over ten years of experience working as a school psychologist in a public high school. Her areas of expertise include working with students who have ADHD, executive functioning weaknesses, and other learning differences.
Natalie earned her bachelor’s degree in psychology from Ohio State University in 2004, her masters degree in school psychology in 2006 from Michigan State University, and her Educational Specialist Degree in 2007 from Kent State University. She became a certified Academic Life Coach in 2015 and founded Life Success For Teens in 2016.
When she is not coaching students, Natalie can be found traveling with her family, reading cookbooks, or binge-watching episodes of home decorating shows. One of her favorite parts of coaching is getting a text or email from her former students.
Please subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts! If you’re so inclined to give us a 5-star rating, we’ll love you forever. Who couldn’t use a little extra love?
Leave us a message – via voicemail or use our form – with your questions for experts, or suggestions for future episodes.
Check out our website, where you can find links to all the things!
Our delightfully happy intro and outro theme music, “We Will Get Through This” is performed by Young Presidents, and used under license from Shutterstock.
Transcript is auto-generated by a robot. Apologies in advance for misspellings or errors.
How to Have a Kid and a Life with Guest Ericka Sóuter
Mar 02, 2023
Show notes
March 2, 2023 / Mom &… Podcast Episode 110 / Guest: Ericka Sóuter, an Encore Presentation
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This week, we have a special treat for you: an encore presentation of one of our favorite episodes with Ericka Souter! We’re sharing it again to help us kick off a collection of relaunch episodes over the next few months.
It’s hard to relaunch if you have lost touch with yourself. If you regularly ask yourself, Who am I? or What do I really want? Ericka is the perfect person to remind you that, “You deserve to be on top of your to-do list.”
We were inspired to do a series of relaunch episodes by an article in The Riveter: We Found the Best Websites for Moms Reentering the Workforce. There were some familiar names on the list, like Carol Fishman Cohen, our guest from episode 77, and we also learned about some new-to-us companies helping moms relaunch. Since we live for this stuff and didn’t know about some of these amazing companies, we thought they might be new to you, too!
So give Ericka’s episode a listen if you’re ready to put yourself at the top of the to-do list, and then get ready for our upcoming interviews with Addie Swartz, the CEO of ReacHIRE, Christine Winston from Path Forward, and Jenny Galluzzo from The Second Shift.
Original Show Notes:
Ericka Sóuter started out writing celebrity news, but becoming a mother changed her, and ultimately, changed her career.
She wrote How to Have a Kid and a Life: A Survival Guide, a book that came out of her work around the idea of redefining motherhood. Our conversation included discussion of the “mom gene,” and whether there are some universal truths for all mothers.
Anyone who has parented will relate to our conversations about being touched out, and wishing we’d been able to be honest with ourselves – and others – about what we were going through. We talk about friendships, relationships with our partners, expectations, and more. One of our favorite Ericka gems is, “You deserve to be at the top of your to-do list.”
Ericka’s work is all about helping us achieve that honesty, and she has developed six questions that we should all be asking to help ourselves have children and have lives.
What? You thought we were putting the questions in the show notes? You have to listen for the details.
More About Ericka Sóuter
Ericka Sóuter is a nationally recognized voice in the realm of parenting news and parenting advice, regularly featured on Good Morning America. She is author of How to Have a Kid and a Life: A Survival Guide, which explores the 21st Century parenting dilemma: when did being a good mom become synonymous with giving up everything that makes you, you? Her work also appears on Parents.com, Mom.com, CafeMom, The Bump and What To Expect, all high traffic parenting sites that reach millions of moms each month. It’s her job to speak to parents across the country to stay on top of the issues, controversies and trends most affecting families today.
A journalist with over 20 years of experience, she has been on staff at both People Magazine and Us Weekly where she has written cover stories on everything from the Sexiest Man Alive to the untimely death of Michael Jackson. Before becoming a magazine writer, Ms. Sóuter took a short detour into the world of advertising, accepting a post at the Chicago based agency Leo Burnett as an account executive on the Kellogg’s account. Her ad world claim to fame: she was on the team that created the talking Frosted Mini-Wheat.
Ericka received a Bachelor of Arts from Georgetown University and a Master of Science from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. She has also written for WebMD, Self, Cosmopolitan, Cosmo for Latinas, Essence and Huffington Post. A native of Ann Arbor, Michigan, she currently lives in Manhattan with her college sweetheart husband, Caleb, and sons Lex and Aidan.
Please subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts! If you’re so inclined to give us a 5-star rating, we’ll love you forever. Who couldn’t use a little extra love?
Leave us a message – via voicemail or use our form – with your questions for experts, or suggestions for future episodes.
Check out our website, where you can find links to all the things!
Our delightfully happy intro and outro theme music, “We Will Get Through This” is performed by Young Presidents, and used under license from Shutterstock.
Reframing How You Think About Sex Ed with guest Kara Haug
Feb 23, 2023
Show notes
February 23, 2023 / Mom &… Podcast Episode 109 / Guest: Kara Haug
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Show Summary:
TW/CW:
This episode may be triggering for those with sexual trauma. If you are struggling and need immediate help, call 800.656.4673 or visit https://www.rainn.org/resources for resources and live chat options.
This episode openly discusses sex education. It may not be appropriate for some young listeners (put in those airpods!).
Kara Haug joins us this week for a frank discussion about sex education. We talked about what it means, as moms, to truly understand how our own experiences frame our views on sexuality. Sex education goes beyond s-e-x: reframing our own stories helps us model healthy relationships, productive communication, healthy body image, and self-worth for the children in our lives. Kara offers advice and resources for how we can start normalizing conversations about sex and relationships. We believe this topic has the power to change the world.
Clay Lab at Verge Center for the Arts in Sacramento
Susanne
Looking at microwaves
Listening to the same seven songs for 2.5 hours
SIX times = How many times you’ll listen to this mix if you run a half marathon as slowly as Susanne
More About Kara Haug:
Kara is the founder and partner of Reframing our Stories, a company dedicated to providing sexual health education, resources, and tools for families and communities to normalize conversations around sex and relationships. Her goal is to remove shame, and reframe our stories to promote openness, acceptance and a positive sense of self. She provides education and facilitates sexuality discussions in homes, schools, churches and with community groups domestically and abroad.
Please subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts! If you’re so inclined to give us a 5-star rating, we’ll love you forever. Who couldn’t use a little extra love?
Leave us a message – via voicemail or use our form – with your questions for experts, or suggestions for future episodes.
Check out our website, where you can find links to all the things!
Our delightfully happy intro and outro theme music, “We Will Get Through This” is performed by Young Presidents, and used under license from Shutterstock.
Transcript is auto-generated by a robot. Apologies in advance for misspellings or errors.
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Show Summary:
Our friend, Tami Hackbarth, is back with us this week to talk more about self-care! (Can there ever be enough self-care talk?) Tami has a new book all about erasing the guilt and making sure you have the mental, physical, and emotional resources required to fuel your work. From parenting to work to activism, and everything in, around, and beyond those things, you can’t show up if you’re depleted.
Tami works with professional women who want to get their time and energy back so they can go after their big life goals. Shei began her career working in politics after graduating from UC Davis. In her mid 30s, she began her second career as an elementary school teacher. It was in her work as a teacher, she found herself physically, mentally and emotionally exhausted. These were the beginning signs of burnout. In response, Tami began practicing 100% Guilt-Free Self-Care. It completely changed her life! Now dedicates her career to helping women change their lives through 100% Guilt-Free Self-Care. She is a certified Life+Work Coach through UC Davis Extension and coaches professional women privately all over the country.
Please subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts! If you’re so inclined to give us a 5-star rating, we’ll love you forever. Who couldn’t use a little extra love?
Leave us a message – via voicemail or use our form – with your questions for experts, or suggestions for future episodes.
Check out our website, where you can find links to all the things!
Our delightfully happy intro and outro theme music, “We Will Get Through This” is performed by Young Presidents, and used under license from Shutterstock.
Transcript is auto-generated by a robot. Apologies in advance for misspellings or errors.
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Show Summary:
It was so great to finally have Erin on the show. Longtime listeners may recognize her name as the Hero in the Raspberry Compote Incident at the 2018 Mom2.0 Conference. She saved the day, and Susanne’s pants, with a Tide Pen at a crucial moment.
In addition to being a Stain Treating Tycoon, Erin is also an accomplished writer. We got to talk about what it’s like to pursue a writing career while parenting. We also talk about terrible board games (Chutes & Ladders, anyone?), and what it feels like to want a break so badly you start thinking of wild ways to achieve that time off. Turns out, there are some self care options that don’t require a hospital stay.
BOOK GIVEAWAY!
We are giving away three (3!) copies of Erin’s book, Send Me Into the Woods Alone.
Erin Pepler is a freelance writer who lives in the greater Toronto area with her husband and two kids. Her work has appeared in Romper, Today’s Parent, Chatelaine, MoneySense, Best Health, Reader’s Digest, Broadview Magazine and more. Erin’s first book, Send Me Into The Woods Alone: Essays On Motherhood, was featured in The Globe and Mail, CBC Books, The Toronto Star, Quill & Quire and Publisher’s Weekly. When she isn’t making her kids’ lunches or venting about politics on Twitter, Erin is working on her second collection of essays.
Please subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts! If you’re so inclined to give us a 5-star rating, we’ll love you forever. Who couldn’t use a little extra love?
Leave us a message – via voicemail or use our form – with your questions for experts, or suggestions for future episodes.
Check out our website, where you can find links to all the things!
Our delightfully happy intro and outro theme music, “We Will Get Through This” is performed by Young Presidents, and used under license from Shutterstock.
Transcript is auto-generated by a robot. Apologies in advance for misspellings or errors.
Coping with Grief & Life Transitions with Megan Young
Jan 26, 2023
Show notes
January 26, 2023 / Mom &… Podcast Episode 106 / Guest: Megan Young
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Show Summary:
Many of us automatically associate grief with losing someone, but as Megan Young shares with us, grief touches our lives in many ways. We talked with Megan about a couple areas of grief that we – and a lot of our listeners, maybe? – connect with: the “lost professional” grief and “mother needing to redefine her life” grief.
Megan knows first-hand what it’s like to walk through grief, and learn how to live with loss and transition. She shared advice that is applicable to so many situations. Though our conversation centered on grief, this is far from a sad episode. We were left feeling encouraged and equipped, and we hope you will, too!
Megan Young is a trained life coach specializing in life transitions and grief. Through her own personal story of loss, she has discovered the key to creating a fulfilling life alongside her grief and new life chapters. Megan provides her clients with guidance, tools and perspective while navigating grief. She is also author of the Life After Loss Workbook Series for human and pet death. Available on Amazon.
Megan and her husband have two sons (Lincoln & Townes), an elderly cat named Dudley and chickens. They reside in the Texas Hill Country outside of Austin. There, Megan loves to lend support and encouragement to her community, family, and friends.
Please subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts! If you’re so inclined to give us a 5-star rating, we’ll love you forever. Who couldn’t use a little extra love?
Leave us a message – via voicemail or use our form – with your questions for experts, or suggestions for future episodes.
Check out our website, where you can find links to all the things!
Our delightfully happy intro and outro theme music, “We Will Get Through This” is performed by Young Presidents, and used under license from Shutterstock.
Transcript is auto-generated by a robot. Apologies in advance for misspellings or errors.
Time Tracking & Taming the Chaos with Guest Laura Vanderkam
Jan 19, 2023
Show notes
January 19, 2023 / Mom &… Podcast Episode 105 / Guest: Laura Vanderkam
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Show Summary:
Laura Vanderkam is a time-tracking genius. Over the last seven years, she has tracked her own time and taught people all over the world to do the same. More importantly, she helps people learn why and how time tracking can change your life. It’s not just about keeping a spreadsheet of every little thing you do. It’s about taming the chaos and making meaningful choices.
Learning not to take overly long exercise breaks. It’s hard to bounce back!
More About Laura Vanderkam:
Laura Vanderkam is the author of several time management books, including the new Tranquility by Tuesday, along with I Know How She Does It, and 168 Hours. She is the host of the Before Breakfast podcast, and the co-host, with Sarah Hart-Unger, of the Best of Both Worlds podcast. She lives outside Philadelphia with her husband and five children, and blogs at LauraVanderkam.com.
Please subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts! If you’re so inclined to give us a 5-star rating, we’ll love you forever. Who couldn’t use a little extra love?
Leave us a message – via voicemail or use our form – with your questions for experts, or suggestions for future episodes.
Check out our website, where you can find links to all the things!
Our delightfully happy intro and outro theme music, “We Will Get Through This” is performed by Young Presidents, and used under license from Shutterstock.
Transcript is auto-generated by a robot. Apologies in advance for misspellings or errors.
Time Tracking, Word of the Year and 2023 Kick Off
Jan 12, 2023
Show notes
January 12, 2023 / Mom &… Podcast Episode 104 / Featuring the Hosts
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Show Summary:
This week features Susanne and Missy, sans guest, talking about prep work we’re doing for an upcoming episode with Laura Vanderkam. We’re working on our time management skills, and tracking our time to help us understand where the hours go. Spoiler: a lot of hours go to a lot of unproductive activities.
We also spend some of the episode talking about what’s going on in our lives right now, and you won’t be surprised to find out we get sidetracked multiple times. The conversation ranges from Covid to raccoons to football. There’s something for everyone!
TCU in the College Football National Championship (and the California rain)
Photos of things we talked about:
Missy as Princess Fiona?
Our friend (and guest), Abby Mathews on Instagram with her cow!
The map from Missy’s shuttle bus adventure at the CFB National Championship in Los Angeles
Connect With the Mom &… Podcast
Please subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts! If you’re so inclined to give us a 5-star rating, we’ll love you forever. Who couldn’t use a little extra love?
Leave us a message – via voicemail or use our form – with your questions for experts, or suggestions for future episodes.
Check out our website, where you can find links to all the things!
Our delightfully happy intro and outro theme music, “We Will Get Through This” is performed by Young Presidents, and used under license from Shutterstock.
Transcript is auto-generated by a robot. Apologies in advance for misspellings or errors.
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