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

When you’re a parent, every day brings a “fresh hell” to deal with. In other words, there’s always something. Think of us as your funny mom friends who are here to remind you: you’re not alone, and it won’t always be this hard.
We’re Amy Wilson and Margaret Ables, both busy moms of three kids, but with completely different parenting styles. Margaret is a laid-back to the max; Amy never met a spreadsheet or an organizational system she didn’t like.
In each episode of “What Fresh Hell” we offer lots of laughs, but also practical advice, parenting strategies, and tips to empower you in your role as a mom. We explore self-help techniques, as well as ways to prioritize your own needs, combat stress, and despite the invisible workload we all deal with, find joy amidst the chaos of motherhood.
If you’ve ever wondered “why is my kid…” then one of us has probably been there, and we’re here to tell you what we’ve learned along the way.
We unpack the behaviors and developmental stages of toddlers, tweens, and teenagers, providing insights into their actions and equipping you with effective parenting strategies.
We offer our best parenting tips and skills we’ve learned. We debate the techniques and studies that are everywhere for parents these days, and get to the bottom of what works best to raise happy, healthy, fairly well-behaved kids, while fostering a positive parent-child relationship.
If you’re the default parent in your household, whether you’re a busy mom juggling multiple pickups and dropoffs, or a first-time parent seeking guidance, this podcast is your trusted resource. Join our community of supportive mom friends laughing in the face of motherhood!
whatfreshhellpodcast.com

Copyright: Copyright © 2016-2023 What Fresh Hell, LLC

Latest Episodes:

What's Your Mom Superpower? Dec 09, 2020

Show notes

This episode topic was suggested by Pam Marie in our Facebook group:

What's your mom superpower? We often talk about what we get wrong, but what about the things you're really good at? Time to flex, What Fresh Hell community!

Everyone needs an ‘Attaboy!’ every once in a while. And when you’re a mom, you usually have to give it to yourself. In this episode, Amy brags about her X-ray recall of exactly where the shirt definitely *is* hanging in her son’s closet. Margaret explains that she’s a “super sniffer,” and you’ll have to listen to know what that’s all about.

We discuss some of our listeners’ powers, as well. Whether you’re Eileen, whose kids have not been late to school once in seven years, or Sue, who has the superhuman ability to resist shouldering her children’s emotional burdens for them, we are truly impressed by all of your superpowers. Attaboy.

* Leave us a rating or review in your favorite podcast app! * Join us on Facebook: https://facebook.com/whatfreshhellcast * Instagram: https://instagram.com/whatfreshhellcast * YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/WhatFreshHellPodcast * Pinterest: https://pinterest.com/whatfreshhellcast * Twitter: https://twitter.com/WFHpodcast * questions and feedback: info@whatfreshhellpodcast.com

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Fresh Take: Katherine May on "Wintering" and the Power of Rest and Retreat In Difficult Times Dec 04, 2020

Show notes

This week we're talking to Katherine May, author of the tremendous new book WINTERING: THE POWER OF REST AND RETREAT IN DIFFICULT TIMES.

Written before the pandemic but perfectly relevant to the moment we're in, WINTERING explores how the natural world prepares for and survives winter, and how we can apply the lessons of actual winters to the metaphorical winters in our lives where, as Katherine puts it, "we feel like the world has pushed us out. We feel isolated, depressed, locked out in the cold, and that the rest of life is drifting away from us."

We all go through personal winters. Sometimes they're for terrible reasons (an unexpected death); sometimes they're for happy ones (a newborn who needs to be fed every two hours). Sometimes they're brief and not too unbearable; sometimes no end is in sight.

Winter is cyclical, it's part of life, and it can be understood as a time of rest and of waiting, rather than of stillness and death. There is much that winter can teach us, and we loved both this conversation with Katherine and her profound book.

You can find WINTERING: THE POWER OF REST AND RETREAT IN DIFFICULT TIMES here

or in our Bookshop store: https://bookshop.org/a/12099/9780593189481

You can follow Katherine on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/katherinemay_/?hl=en

and Twitter: https://twitter.com/_katherine_may_?lang=en

and you can listen to her podcast THE WINTERING SESSIONS here: https://podnews.net/podcast/1516642192

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It Takes A Village (But We're Doing It Alone) Dec 02, 2020

Show notes

For the last 1.8 million years or so, children were raised village-style. But 2020 has meant a lot of us raising our kids without the usual help of grandparents or schools or caregivers or friends.

As New York Times parenting writer Jessica Grose explains:

"Throughout basically all of human history, parents have never, ever raised children in isolated nuclear units the way they have been doing for much of 2020, with little to no hands-on family or community support."

And now we’re on month nine of no village. And it’s getting cold. And here come the holidays. Yes, this is as hard as you think it is.

The village doesn’t just benefit the kids– it helps the parents keep going, too. So make your own village, even if you don’t feel like it. Whatever community you can create right now counts, whether it's on Zoom or on social media or on a group text or in your podcast listening, or by posting your #danishbaby photos to our Facebook group, never apologize for what that village looks like.

Here are links to the research and other writing on this topic that we discuss in this episode:

Jessica Grose for NYT: Parenting Was Never Meant to Be This Isolating
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/07/parenting/childcare-history-family.html
Sarah Blaffer Hrdy for Natural History Magazine: Meet the Alloparents
https://www.naturalhistorymag.com/htmlsite/0409/0409_feature.pdf
Lynn Steger Strong for Time: Women Value Their Group Texts in Normal Times. During the Pandemic They've Become a Lifeline
https://time.com/5894745/group-texts-women-coronavirus/
Stephanie Coontz for The New Republic: The Way We Never Were
https://newrepublic.com/article/132001/way-never

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Ask Amy- Can You Discipline a One-Year-Old? Nov 30, 2020

Show notes

This week Lindsay asks: How do you discipline a 1-year-old? Specifically, with pulling my hair and dropping his food on the ground. I say “no" in a firm way and he laughs at me. Any advice you could provide would be much appreciated. Thanks for all you do- love your podcast!

You can't discipline a 1-year-old. They don't get it. But you can redirect, and in this episode Amy explains how that can work.

Toddlers drop food on the floor because they’re fascinated by cause and effect, and in repeating the few things they can control. It's a behavior kids will bore of sooner than you can correct it. But if the parental reaction is swift and predictable, it can actually encourage more food-throwing. The challenge is to make throwing food on the floor more boring than NOT doing it.

Pulling hair is another brief but intense stage of toddler behavior, and the quickest way to discourage that might be by adding an incompatible behavior– something that can't happen at the same time as the hair-pulling. If you hand a toddler a toy he loves before picking him up, he can't pull your hair. If you untangle your hair, put him down, and otherwise blank-face it, that's another incompatible behavior. So is pulling your hair back until this stage passes.

To come up with ideas for redirecting undesirable behaviors, consider the strategy Carolyn Dalgliesh suggests in her book THE SENSORY CHILD GETS ORGANIZED: "What can you add? What can you take away?" Think about what dial you can adjust on the situation to refocus your toddler's attention. It takes patience and a little outside-of-the-box thinking, but you'll find something that really works for you.

Find Carolyn Dalgliesh's book, and all the books Amy and Margaret recommend, in our Bookshop store:

https://bookshop.org/shop/whatfreshhellcast

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Super-Secret Amazing Things We Want You To Know About Nov 25, 2020

Show notes

We asked all of you to tell us your super-secret awesome things: the life simplifiers that you think everyone else needs to know about.

This episode has an incredible collection of indispensable condiments and doo-dads, portable boredom busters, and things that will keep any kid happily busy for a surprisingly long time.

Head to our website for links to everything you hear about in this episode- you can find it all here:

https://bit.ly/WFHep183

Most are affiliate Amazon links– but we encourage you to shop local if you're buying!

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Ask Margaret - My Child is Terrified of the Doctor's Office Nov 23, 2020

Show notes

This week our listener Raya asks, "How do I deal with a 4-year-old who is afraid to go to any doctor's office?"

Doctors' offices are scary! There are shots, there's vulnerability, and there's an adult in charge who might be really intimidating to a little one.

No kid is ever going to dance off to the pediatrician. The goal is to make your child's experience as manageable as possible– by communicating openly about why the visit is necessary, discussing what is going to happen during the visit, and placing a little emphasis on the reward (okay, you might call it a bribe) that your little one can look forward to for good behavior.

Margaret quotes this article in this episode :"Fear of Doctors" (whattoexpect.com)

Send us your parenting questions- we might answer yours next!

Email us: questions@whatfreshhellpodcast.com.

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* Instagram: https://instagram.com/whatfreshhellcast

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* Twitter: https://twitter.com/WFHpodcast

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Fresh Take: Ali Wentworth on Pandemic Family Survival Nov 20, 2020

Show notes

In our latest “Fresh Take” episode we’re talking to Ali Wentworth, host of the "Go Ask Ali" podcast. If you're raising teens during this pandemic, you definitely want Ali's funny, wise, and useful interviews with experts on your podcast playlist!

Ali Wentworth is perhaps best known from her iconic roles in Jerry Maguire, Office Space, and Seinfeld. She’s the host of the Daily Shot on Yahoo!, has also written several books filled with wry self-help observations and tips, and regularly stops by Good Morning America to chat with hubby George Stephanopoulos. Ali and George have two teenage daughters.

In this episode we discuss

Ali's family's experience with Covid
how to parent teenagers during a pandemic
how to create "space" in your relationship when you're stuck together 24/7
just how much ice cream is allowed during lockdown

Follow Ali on Instagram @therealaliwentworth and find the "Go Ask Ali" podcast here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/go-ask-ali/id1523352034?at=11lo6V&ct=podnews_podcast

* Leave us a rating or review in your favorite podcast app! * Join us on Facebook: https://facebook.com/whatfreshhellcast * Instagram: https://instagram.com/whatfreshhellcast * YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/WhatFreshHellPodcast * Pinterest: https://pinterest.com/whatfreshhellcast * Twitter: https://twitter.com/WFHpodcast * questions and feedback: info@whatfreshhellpodcast.com

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Parenting as a Team Nov 18, 2020

Show notes

Parenting as a team is an ongoing challenge– even when your relationship with your co-parent is usually harmonious. But matching headspaces with your co-parent about a problem your family, or one of your children, is dealing with doesn't have to be the goal.

Parenting as a team can often mean taking turns, whether it's with the pancake-flipping, the hard talks with teenagers, or the 3 am worried Googling of ICD-10 diagnoses. In this episode we talk about what’s worked for us in moments of disagreement or struggle with our spouses, and how we found common ground.

If getting through the pandemic means zooming in, just getting to the next lamppost, parenting as a team means zooming way out. If you know you're on the same page about the adults you want your children to become, it's a little easier to chill out about how they’ll get there.

In this episode, Amy and Margaret discuss their "Pre-Cana" experiences in the Catholic Church, and the usefulness of the Engaged Encounter program in particular. To find out more: engagedencounter.com

Margaret also mentions the book WHAT CHILDREN LEARN FROM THEIR PARENTS' MARRIAGES, which you can find in our Bookshop store: https://bookshop.org/a/12099/9780060929305

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Ask Amy- My Toddler Is Waking Up Way Too Early Nov 16, 2020

Show notes

This week's question is from Rachel in our Facebook group:

Help! My 2-year-old used to sleep from 7 pm – 7 am. It was glorious. We recently had to start quarantining again due to exposure at my job. Since then, she has started waking up earlier and earlier. We pushed her bedtime back to 7:30 but it hasn't made a difference. This morning she was up at 5:30! I was thinking about one of the clocks with the light in her room but would she understand that yet?

Kids' sleep patterns can change for a number of reasons. Rachel's probably on to something with the quarantine being a factor– that might have led to less sunshine, or exercise, or a loss of other guideposts in the day that made sense to her little one.

But Rachel's goal isn't really to get her daughter to sleep later; it's to get her to roll over and close her eyes after that first early-morning stirring. Amy suggests several techniques to make that option more inviting, including these paper blackout shades that are super-easy to install and make bedrooms nice and dark.

Send us your parenting questions- we might answer yours next!

Email us: questions@whatfreshhellpodcast.com.

* Leave us a rating or review in your favorite podcast app!

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* Instagram: https://instagram.com/whatfreshhellcast

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* Twitter: https://twitter.com/WFHpodcast

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Fresh Take: Calysta Watson on "Food Memories" and Dealing With Food Allergies Nov 13, 2020

Show notes

In our latest “Fresh Take" episode we’re talking to Calysta Watson, creator of Epicurean Therapy.

Calysta combines her love of cooking and her training as a LCSW and psychotherapist to create awareness of the connection between food and our mental and emotional health. As a mom raising a child with multiple anaphylactic food allergies, Calysta also talks about the challenge of enjoying creating meals and making great food memories with our kids, no matter the obstacles.

In this episode we discuss

what the obstacles are to us enjoying creating meals for our families
how to avoid using food as a punishment or a reward
how to create "food memories" our children will carry with them
how to make food work for kids with specific food challenges (from rigid preferences to serious food allergies)

Follow Calysta's Instagram at: on https://www.instagram.com/epicureantherapy

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* Instagram: https://instagram.com/whatfreshhellcast

* YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/WhatFreshHellPodcast

* Pinterest: https://pinterest.com/whatfreshhellcast

* Twitter: https://twitter.com/WFHpodcast

* questions and feedback: info@whatfreshhellpodcast.com

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