Go Ask Your Mother BBC Sounds

Holidays pre-children are a relaxing affair filled with only things you want to do, post babies they become expensive palavers, filled with mascots, kids clubs and theme parks. Is a family holiday even a holiday for the parents? And all this is hard enough without having to decide whether to pay the fine and take your kids out of school or pay the extortionate prices to travel during the summer holidays. Let's face it getting away as a family is never cheap but can you really put a price on broadening your children's horizons and perspectives of the world? In this episode Sindy & Vanel unpick their own childhood holiday woes and the two discuss all the places they would like to go - with and without the kids! And, like many of us with family abroad, they debate when is the right time to see family and when is the right time to see the world.

From baby showers to graduations, celebrations become a key point in any parents journey. And when it comes to celebrating, every family has their own traditions to keep, whether that’s the obligatory game of charades at christmas or the family matching costumes at Halloween - it’s all part of the fun….right? Not to mention the all important birthday parties and the politics that comes along with them - who to invite, who not to invite and how much is too much to spend? In this episode Vanel and Sindy talk about how their families celebrated growing up and what they intend to celebrate with the girls - or not. We even get to hear of how a young Vanel who never got to celebrate halloween used to hand out stock cubes to trick or treaters as revenge.

A child's curiosity is inevitably going to lead them to question how we all came to be? And with the many, varied answers out there - whether religious, scientific and everything in between - parents have to make a choice. Even then, there may be different approaches from nursery, from school and even within the family. So how do we let our children know that this fundamental question is essentially up for debate? In this episode Vanel and Sindy tell us all about their own religious journeys and their experiences of a religious upbringing - for good and bad. The also talk about how they pan to navigate raising their children Christian in 2020 and what happens if the girls turn their back on faith.

Social media is rapidly changing the world we live in and Vanel and Sindy better get prepared to help the girls navigate this online life. From seemingly ‘perfect’ influencers to trolls & bullies, there are a lot of people your children may encounter on social media but how do we protect them from the often treacherous online world? Let’s face it, many parents are guilty of posting those cute baby snaps on their own socials but how old is old enough to have an online presence? Is even keeping them offline an option when social media pages are the new CV and like and follows the new currency? It’s all so confusing, but in this episode Vanel and Sindy tackle all these tricky questions and more, whilst trying to figure out the line between the pros and cons of social media. As well as telling us of all their embarrassing parental online interactions - what is it with Mum’s and Facebook forwards!

Yep, it’ll happen and you are going to have to talk to them about it...or do you leave it to their peers and the online world to answer their questions? Every parent dreads having “The Talk” with their kids but in this episode Vanel and Sindy talk about the consequences of not having it when they were growing up. We also hear about peer pressure and how a younger Vanel felt being the only one at the party to still be a virgin. They both try to tackle their own anxieties about having “The Talk” with the girls and is Vanel off the hook when it comes to dealing with these awkward conversations? We shall see, when some expert advice changes their mind about the whole topic!

With more and more people choosing to bypass the marriage route - is being married important to parenthood? In this episode we hear all about how Vanel and Sindy got engaged! The two also tell us how they were raised to think about marriage and discuss just how important it is in raising children. Plus, the amazing Marvyn Harrison of Dope Black Dads drops by to give Vanel some pretty unique marriage advice.