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July 29, 2022 / Mom &… Podcast Episode 81 / Guest: Natalie Silverstein Subscribe & Review Wherever You Listen to Podcasts Show Summary: An episode topic close to our hearts this week: advocacy. Not only advocacy, but a discussion about getting the whole family involved. Our guest, Natalie Silverstein, has made giving back a way of life, and her “Simple Acts” books provide busy families with actionable (and simple) ways to get involved. One of our favorite quotables from Natalie is, “Don’t count the hours. Make the hours count.” More About Natalie Silverstein: Natalie Silverstein is an author, volunteer and passionate advocate for family and youth service. Her first book, Simple Acts: The Busy Family’s Guide to Giving Back, was published in 2019 and was named as one of the Top Books for parents who want to raise kind kids by the HuffPost. Her second book, The Busy Teen’s Guide to Making a Difference, launched on July 12th, 2022. After a successful career in healthcare administration and as a non-profit founder, Natalie became the New York coordinator of Doing Good Together, an organization with the mission of helping parents raise kids who care and contribute. In this role, she curates a free monthly e-mail listing of family-friendly service opportunities that is distributed to thousands of subscribers. Her personal essays on parenting, grief and loss have been published on several national platforms including Medium, Grown and Flown and Motherwell. Along with her husband, she is the co-founder of The Silverstein Foundation for Parkinson’s with GBA, a non-profit focused on finding a cure for Parkinson’s Disease in GBA mutation carriers. As a philanthropist, she is a member of Impact 100 NYC and Legacy Collective, two giving circles which make grants to nonprofits making a transformative impact on their communities. Natalie holds a master’s degree in public health from Yale University. She lives in New York City with her husband and three teenagers. Topics From This Episode Doing Good Together – organization dedicated to family volunteerismHow giving back helps in times of stress (like, say, a pandemic)Why doing one thing is enoughFiguring out what you like, what skills you haveOur episode about giving back, no matter how much time you have.Grief Connect with Natalie: WebsiteInstagramFacebook Look, Listen, Learn Susanne Comedy Comedy Comedy Drama by Bob Odenkirk(And Mr. Show is the one we could not think of!)Ms Marvel on Disney+Article about the India-Pakistan partition Natalie The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine ChanSamantha IrbyGrief is Love: Living with Loss by Marisa Renee LeeRabbi Steve Leder’s new book (and also, The Beauty of What Remains)Kelly Corrigan’s podcast, Wonder Missy Bomb Shelter by Mary Laura PhilpottV Interesting with V SpeherUnder the Desk News (aslo from V) 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!Follow our Facebook PageJoin our private Facebook Group (All you have to do is ask to join, and then be nice once you’re in. So easy!)Follow us on InstagramBecome a patron – check us out on Patreon! Musical Notes Our delightfully happy intro and outro theme music, “We Will Get Through This” is performed by Young Presidents, and used under license from Shutterstock. Watch This Episode On Our YouTube Channel Transcript autogenerated. Apologies in advance for any misspellings and/or errors. [00:00:00] Missy: Welcome to the mom and dot.dot podcast. I’m Missy Stevens, mom and dot.dot writer, foster child advocate, and lately full-time summer swim mom. [00:00:35] Susanne: no kidding. [00:00:37] Missy: hot. [00:00:38] Susanne: Oh, that’s a bad week for it here in Texas. [00:00:40] Missy: a bad week. [00:00:42] Susanne: And I’m Suzanne Kern’s mom and.dot writer, LGBTQ and sex ed advocate. And today returner of a dozen swimsuits did not make the cut for our trip to Belize. So wait for those Amazon. Oh my God. I always feel so guilty. Like the ups people didn’t have enough to do before they became like the drop off point for all things, Amazon. [00:01:04] Missy: Right, We are thrilled today to welcome Natalie Silverstein, mom and.dot dot. Volunteer and passionate advocate for family and youth service. Her first book simple acts, the busy family’s guide to giving back was published in 2019 and was named one of the top books for parents who want to raise kind kids, her second book. And what we’re spending most of our time on today is the busy teens guide to making a difference launched just recently, July after a successful career in healthcare administration, and as a nonprofit founder, Natalie became the New York coordinator of doing good together. An organization with the mission of helping parents raise kids who care and contribute her personal essays on parenting grief and loss have been published on several national. Platforms, including medium grown and flown and mother. Well, along with her husband, she is the co-founder of the Silverstein foundation for Parkinson’s with GBA and nonprofit focused on finding a cure for Parkinson’s disease in GBA mutation carriers. She’s also a member of impact 100 NYC and legacy collective two giving circles, which make grants to nonprofit. Natalie holds a master’s degree in public health from Yale university. She lives in New York city with her husband and three teenagers. Welcome. [00:02:15] Natalie: well, thank you so much for having me miss and Suzanne. It’s such a pleasure to meet you guys. [00:02:19] Susanne: Oh, my gosh. And I, I love so much about volunteering and this idea that you say that everybody has something to give. And I just, I cannot wait to dive into the book, but I know that there’s a lot more to you than your book. So is there anything, beyond your bio that you can give us a little Natalie? 1 0 1. [00:02:38] Natalie: Well, you know, I started out, as you mentioned, my career in healthcare administration and a master’s in public health. I worked in hospitals, I worked for managed care companies. I was a consultant. I worked for a startup, and it was wonderful. It was, um, you know, these were my first jobs out of college and I really enjoyed it. And I think I spent my whole career and, and much of my life figuring out ways to help people. Right. So that’s what drew me to healthcare. Generally. I didn’t wanna be a clinician. I wasn’t going to be a doctor or a nurse that was not for me. Blood and bodily fluids, uh, were not for me, but until I was a parent, apparently, um, [00:03:13] Missy: Then you have no choice. [00:03:14] Natalie: choice, but, um, I knew that I wanted to work in that environment. And so it was wonderful and very fulfilling after. Third child was born. I, I kept at it for a while. And then after the third one, um, I kind of figured out that it was, it was time for me to stay home, but I, you know, I worked in as, as you mentioned with several nonprofits, mostly cancer focused. I did a lot of fundraising. I consider myself to be a really good fundraiser. I love asking people for money. I have no problem asking people for money. For something that I care passionately about. if I believe in something and I think that it’s a philanthropic priority for my family, I would be delighted to speak to you about why I think it’s important for you to support that as well. and so I love fundraising and raising my family and sitting on the board of my children’s school on and on and on, everyone can relate to this work. Um, and so at some point in there, when my kids were. it occurred to me as I think it does to most parents that really the only way to raise grateful, grounded, empathetic, compassionate kids who care about others. And aren’t totally self-involved right. um, is to have them turn their focus outward, you know, to do hands on service, to really insist. That these are our values as a family, and we’re going to incorporate this work into the way that we live our lives. And so birthday parties, having an opportunity where kids could do a service project or have donations in lieu of gifts, that sort of thing, this sort of just became what we were doing as a family and in New York city, if you can. it’s very hard to find non-profit organizations that would accept us as volunteers with young children. That’s true everywhere across the country. And I totally understand this is an insurance issue. I get it, but, that being said, I connected with doing good together. Which is an organization that your readers must your listeners. Excuse me, must learn about, doing good together.org. It’s based in Minneapolis. I founded the first sort of regional, office, if you will, in New York city, but now they’re all over the country. We do not have one in Texas. Just yet. But so what I do is I curate a listing of family friendly, volunteer opportunities in New York city, and that’s pushed out two thousands of subscribers. So that became my passion. And, I became that resource. I was the Rolodex of this information for families in our community that led to speaking engagements that led to sort of personal consulting. People would call me, where should we donate our items? My kid has a bar mitzvah coming up. What should we do? All of these things. I was like, wow. Parents really want this information and it’s just not out there for them. So I figured I love writing. Uh, it’s also a passion of mine and there’s a book here and I wrote it and that was the first book in 2019. So, you know, it’s funny, I found my passion and my purpose, the thing I was meant to do here, aside from raising good people. I found that fairly late in life, you know, my first book was published the year I turned. So, uh, I don’t know. I just think it’s, it’s just a, a good reminder that, wherever your career starts and whatever path you take, sometimes things fall into your lap and, and your lived experience presents these opportunities to you. [00:06:26] Susanne: Oh, [00:06:26] Missy: I mean, that speaks right to our hearts. [00:06:28] Susanne: I know every bit of that. I’m like, so, so, so, and I did wanna actually throw in, um, for people who live in the Austin area, even though we don’t have, the organization you were mentioning here, we do have a grouped that my friend Erica started called Austin allies. And it really was cuz exactly what you said. It, you think that, you know, there’s all these organizations that need all this help, but they do need help, but they don’t necessarily. To be managing a bunch of little kiddos and, you know, it’s a lot of work for them to figure out what to delegate and what, what their skills are. And so she does a lot of that work of finding the organizations and I mean, just making it as turnkey as possible to the point of even like, come get the materials you need out of her garage kind of thing. And you could do it at home. [00:07:17] Natalie: And that’s the truth. I think every parent recognizes that this is important work to do. They probably realize there is stuff out there in the world, but we’re all so, so busy. And let’s be honest. This is gonna be pretty low on the list of things that you’re gonna go out and look for and Google and figure out for yourself. So what I wanted to do, because it was my joy to do this was sort of package it up in this very easy to use, very actionable, very sort of. Bulleted, you know, go here, Google, this, find these, um, organizations in your community, think about this kind of project. And I put it all together in this very prescriptive, very actionable resource guide. And I hear from people all the time that they just leave it out on the, on the table and their kids will pick it up and scroll, you know, just kind of flip through it and be like, oh, that looks like fun. Why don’t we try that? That’s I love to hear that because this is what it’s about. It’s about finding. Thing that sparks your child’s curiosity and their interest and the thing that they love to do, because if you can figure that out, they will want to do it and they will wanna continue to do it over time. It’s not this forcing them to go out and do service. It is something that brings them great joy. [00:08:25] Susanne: Yeah. And beyond just the teenagers, we’d argue. This is really helpful for a lot of our listeners who we encourage, we feel like stay at home. Moms are this army of potential for doing volunteer work and doing good in communities. But sometimes it is a just hard even knowing where to start knowing what time of opportunities are available and how those match up to your temperament and those type of things. And this book is just so amazing. So for any age, really? I put it on the coffee table for your kids to see it, but then also read through it yourself. There’s it is. So I, I am the nuts and bolts girl and it is so like, literally, like you said, do this, like BA it baby steps, you and hold your hand through every step of the way. And it is just, yeah, it’s incredible. [00:09:15] Natalie: Well, in the first [00:09:16] Missy: get my hard copy to do just that, to leave it out. Cuz we do service together, but I don’t think we’ve hit upon, especially my older sons. I don’t think we’ve hit upon his passion and I think they have to figure that out themselves. And so I can’t wait to just have the hard copy and he’s a reader and I know he’ll pick it up. [00:09:33] Natalie: Awesome. And this book, you know, the new book that just came out this week is really written for teenagers, which was a little bit of a challenge, cuz I didn’t want it to be naggy or preachy or corny. You know, our, our teens are, you know, a little tapped out and they have enough people telling them what to do. I didn’t want them to read my book and feel like another mom is telling them what to do. So that was a new challenge for me. The first book from 2019, the, the busy families guide to giving back was really written for parents because that publisher insisted that it be written for families with children zero to 10. So I have chapter in there about, you know, your first birthday party that you’re planning or a. baby shower or, you know, a christening or a Briss and how to incorporate service and, and gratitude sort of setting this precedent, understanding that the child involved here , I don’t know about you, but my kids on their first birthday, they slept through the whole thing. [00:10:21] Missy: Yes, [00:10:22] Natalie: that party, that party is for you and [00:10:24] Missy: that’s for you. That’s the, I kept a baby alive for a year, kind [00:10:28] Natalie: the baby falls asleep. I want people to congratulate me. However, if you sort of set this tone, like this baby doesn’t need anything, maybe we could have, you know, donations in lieu of gifts, or you decorate the tables with something that you might then give away to an organization. Like all of that stuff is just setting a tone. And I think the perspective that I like to share is it’s never too early. To start this work. Cuz I get that question all the time. How old do they have to be? My child is six and a half. Do you think they have to be seven? And I’m like, okay, start today. Let’s just start today. What could we do today while you’re making dinner? And the child is sitting at the table doing nothing. You could have a stack of paper and some crayons and the child could be drawing pictures or whatever, and then you could fold those up and make cards and send them to, you know, a nursing home, send them to children in the hospital, whatever. So that book was really for this kind of young families to be inspired, to do this work from the get go. But now let’s say you have older kids and that has not been the work t…
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