The Mothers with Sara Brown

Backline Media
  • 4.8 (22)
  • Society & Culture
  • Updated Weekly

Sara Brown sits down with the people shaping our world — extraordinary leaders, creators, and thinkers — to explore how their identity, purpose, and ambition evolve alongside career and motherhood. These conversations invite you to get curious about who you are, what you want, and why you want it — and leave you inspired to build a life that honors those answers. Raw, smart, and deeply human, The Mothers blends the emotional honesty of We Can Do Hard Things, the practical wisdom of Mel Robbins, and the intellectual depth of Brené Brown. Follow, review and join us on IG @themotherspod.

  1. Aug 11

    The Psychology of Winning as a Working Mother with Nafeesa Remtilla

    What happens when a lifetime of high achievement runs headfirst into motherhood? Nafeesa Remtilla knows the high-achiever playbook well. Before becoming CEO of Poppins Payroll, she built a career across Goldman Sachs, Bain & Company, and Robinhood, where she served as Vice President of Product & Operations. She is also the mother of two young children. In this episode, Nafeesa joins Sara for a candid and highly practical conversation about working motherhood, career success, parenting, control, and what changes when the strategies that helped us succeed professionally stop working quite so neatly at home. Nafeesa shares why becoming a parent dramatically shrank her “circle of control” – and how learning to focus on what she can control has made her a better mother and leader. They also talk about why high achievers spend too much time fixing their weaknesses instead of building around their strengths; the freedom of becoming a “good enough” parent; childcare as essential infrastructure for working families; and how motherhood taught Nafeesa to define success on her own terms. Plus: the remarkably simple ritual she uses to transition from work mode to mom mode, why she’s trying to ask herself “...What if it all works out?” and the humbling reality of discovering spit-up on your shoulder in a meeting with the CEO. A smart, funny, refreshingly grounded conversation about achievement, working parenthood, leadership – and loosening your grip on the things you were never going to control anyway. Learn more about Poppins Payroll at www.poppinspayroll.com ******* ⭐️ Follow The Mothers and leave a 5-star review if this resonated 💬 Share this episode with someone who needs to hear it 📱 Join The Mothers on Instagram @themotherspod ✍️ Subscribe to ⁠⁠Sara’s Substack⁠⁠ for reflections on life, work, meaning & motherhood 💼 Find Sara on ⁠LinkedIn The Mothers is a production of Backline Media.

    The Psychology of Winning as a Working Mother with Nafeesa Remtilla

  2. Aug 4

    [BEST OF] The Stories That Hold Women Back with Dr. Jessica Zucker

    For our final replay of the summer, we're revisiting one of our most thought-provoking conversations—with psychologist, author, and maternal mental health expert Dr. Jessica Zucker. It's a conversation about the stories we inherit, the ones we tell ourselves, and the courage it takes to rewrite them. Enjoy! ******* Dr. Jessica Zucker has spent her career helping women tell the stories they've been taught to keep quiet. A psychologist specializing in reproductive and maternal mental health, Jessica is the author of Normalize It and I Had a Miscarriage, creator of the viral #IHadAMiscarriage movement, and one of the leading voices challenging the shame and silence that still shape so many women's lives. Together, we explore the stories we inherit. The "shoulds" we carry. The pressure to have it all, do it all, and somehow feel grateful every step of the way. Jessica opens up about the miscarriage that changed the course of her life, navigating breast cancer while writing her second book, balancing motherhood with deeply emotional work, and why women don't need to be fixed—they need to be heard. Together, we explore: Why storytelling is one of the most powerful tools for changing culture The impossible expectations placed on mothers Why high-achieving women struggle to ask for help What "good enough" really looks like When enough is actually enough Why replacing silence with truth might be the most important work any of us can do Jessica's writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Vogue, Harvard Business Review, and New York Magazine, and she's been featured on NPR, CNN, The Today Show, and Good Morning America. Content note: We briefly discuss miscarriage near the beginning of the conversation (6:30-7:08) if you’d prefer to skip that portion. Learn more at drjessicazucker.com or follow Jessica on Instagram @ihadamiscarriage. ******* ⭐️ Follow The Mothers and leave a 5-star review if this resonated 💬 Share this episode with someone who needs to hear it 📱 Join The Mothers on Instagram @themotherspod ✍️ Subscribe to ⁠⁠Sara’s Substack⁠⁠ for reflections on life, work, meaning & motherhood 💼 Find Sara on ⁠LinkedIn The Mothers is a production of Backline Media.

    [BEST OF] The Stories That Hold Women Back with Dr. Jessica Zucker

  3. Jul 28

    WTF is Perimenopause? with Michaela North

    Attention, women in your 30's and 40's: have you ever looked at your body in the mirror and thought, “What...is....happening?” If so, we'd like to cordially welcome you to perimenopause. But don't worry - it's not the beginning of the end. Think of it as a recalibration, a years-long hormonal shuffle that can make your workouts feel weird and your sleep impossible (even without little kids to blame.) In this episode, host Christina Hunt sits down with CrossFit champion, coach, and mom of four Michaela North — someone who has lived high-intensity sport, multiple babies, and now a totally different relationship with strength, protein, and recovery — to break down what’s actually happening (fr fr), and what you can do about it. Follow Michaela on Instagram: @hungryfitness Visit their website: hungryfitness.co  Follow WIWIK on Instagram: @whatiwishiknew_ Music by Ben Scott Motion Design by Banona.co **** Podcast Swap: This week, we're excited to swap episodes with What I Wish I Knew, a badass podcast about parenting and women’s health, to introduce our communities to each other's work. If you enjoy this conversation, be sure to check out more episodes from What I Wish I Knew wherever you listen to podcasts and join them on instagram @whatiwishiknew_. ******* ⭐️ Follow The Mothers and leave a 5-star review if this resonated 💬 Share this episode with someone who needs to hear it 📱 Join The Mothers on Instagram @themotherspod ✍️ Subscribe to ⁠⁠Sara’s Substack⁠⁠ for reflections on life, work, meaning & motherhood 💼 Find Sara on ⁠LinkedIn The Mothers is a production of Backline Media.

    WTF is Perimenopause? with Michaela North

  4. Jul 21

    [BEST OF] What It Takes to Matter with Jennifer Wallace

    Note: We are revisiting some of our favorite conversations from the archives this summer. Enjoy the wisdom of Jennifer Wallace this week! And pick up her latest NYT bestseller ‘Mattering.’ Jennifer Breheny Wallace – NYT bestselling author of ‘Mattering’ and ‘Never Enough,’ journalist, and mother of three – joins The Mothers for a conversation about achievement, worth, identity, and what it really takes to feel like you matter. Jennifer’s work explores a question many mothers carry: how can we be doing essential, important, and meaningful work – at home, at the office, and beyond – and still feel like it’s not enough? Like we’re not enough? And sometimes… like we don’t even matter? In this conversation, we look at how motherhood exposes the limits of achievement culture – and why relying on success to supply a sense of mattering can leave us feeling empty instead. Other highlights: Building an “accordion” career – expanding and contracting across seasons of motherhood The difference between shiny success and sustaining success Why achievement is a poor stand-in for self-worth How friendships function as essential infrastructure, not a luxury What it looks like to live in alignment with intrinsic values in an extrinsic world This is a grounded, generous conversation about choosing values over validation and designing a life that can flex, evolve, and endure. Pick up ‘Mattering’ today at https://a.co/d/axcH4mn ****** Learn more about Sage Haus: helping busy households hire vetted, professional House Managers, Family Assistants, and Meal Prep Chefs – whether you need 10 hours a week or 40+ 👉 Get started at https://themothers--sage-haus.thrivecart.com/hiring-services-deposit/ ******* ⭐️ Follow The Mothers and leave a 5-star review if this resonated 💬 Share this episode with someone who needs to hear it 📱 Join The Mothers on Instagram @themotherspod ✍️ Subscribe to ⁠⁠Sara’s Substack⁠⁠ for reflections on life, work, meaning & motherhood 💼 Find Sara on ⁠LinkedIn The Mothers is a production of Backline Media.

    [BEST OF] What It Takes to Matter with Jennifer Wallace

  5. Jul 14

    [BEST OF] Elin Hilderbrand, Bess Clarke & Wendy Rouillard on The Mothers LIVE

    Note: One year ago we recorded our very first LIVE episode featuring three remarkable mothers of Nantucket: Elin Hilderbrand, Bess Clarke and Wendy Rouillard. This was a huge moment for us worth revisiting, and doesn’t hurt that the anniversary coincides with the release of the TV-adaptation of Elin’s ‘The Five-Star Weekend’ on Peacock starring Jennifer Garner! Is there anything mothers cannot do!? Enjoy! Milestone episode out today with Elin Hilderbrand (NYT Bestselling Author & Producer), Bess Clarke (CEO of Nantucket Looms) and Wendy Rouillard (Author & Owner of Barnaby’s). On July 22 we hosted our sold out and very first live recording at Sister Ship Nantucket and we are thrilled to share the conversation with the world, featuring the incredible Mothers behind some of Nantucket’s most iconic brands. We laughed, we cried, we found truth and wisdom, and now you get to have it too.  In this episode: 🛠️The grit required to build a career while raising kids ✍️Why Elin writes her novels longhand 🧠How mental health is the foundation of “having it all” ✈️Why work travel is the worst part of being a working parent ⌛The endless yet finite experience of motherhood 🍷Beer bottles, bongs, wine glasses & sunflower seeds Thank you to our event production team at Faraway/Sister Ship plus Rob Ackroyd/Almanack Sound (Audio), Tucker Finerty (Video), Rebecca Love (Photography) & our generous sponsors: Little Saints, The Vault Nantucket, REMY, Marigold, Roller Rabbit & DOEN. ******* ⭐️ Follow The Mothers and leave a 5-star review if this resonated 💬 Share this episode with someone who needs to hear it 📱 Join The Mothers on Instagram @themotherspod ✍️ Subscribe to ⁠⁠Sara’s Substack⁠⁠ for reflections on life, work, meaning & motherhood 💼 Find Sara on ⁠LinkedIn The Mothers is a production of Backline Media.

    [BEST OF] Elin Hilderbrand, Bess Clarke & Wendy Rouillard on The Mothers LIVE

  6. Jul 7

    [BEST OF] The 75% Rule and Other Lessons in Doing It All, Differently with Lexi Reese

    Editor’s note: We’re revisiting some of our favorite conversations from the archive this summer . Enjoy! Drumroll for greatness – Lexi Reese joins the pod this week! Lexi is the co-founder and CEO of Lanai, an AI Empowerment Platform that helps enterprises transform AI experiments into systematic success. Before Lanai, she led the Global Programmatic Ad Business at Google and then jumped to be the COO of Gusto (a unicorn, but don’t call it a unicorn as you’ll hear Lexi explain in our interview). Always one to look for ways to do more to help others thrive, after Gusto and before Lanai, she launched a campaign for California's U.S. Senate seat. We’re tired just thinking about all of this because in addition to occupying big seats at big tables (and beautifully trying to make more seats for others) – Lexi is the mother of two girls. And for her, motherhood has been a superpower. Helping her become an even better leader (and she’s already one of the best!). As she says in this interview: “I think of motherhood as a leadership laboratory because a great leader makes people better first in their presence, but then it lasts in their absence. It stays with you. And that is what motherhood is.” In our convo we discuss: Going from film-making and finance to the tech c-suite + a run at politicsMotherhood as a leadership laboratoryWhy America sees Mothers as a bug in the systemHow kids clarified her mission to leave the world better than she found it How to operate at 75% when your norm is 125%The role her mother and her immigrant background played in shaping how she wanted to operate in the world******* ⭐️ Follow The Mothers and leave a 5-star review if this resonated 💬 Share this episode with someone who needs to hear it 📱 Join The Mothers on Instagram @themotherspod ✍️ Subscribe to ⁠⁠Sara’s Substack⁠⁠ for reflections on life, work, meaning & motherhood 💼 Find Sara on ⁠LinkedIn The Mothers is a production of Backline Media.

    [BEST OF] The 75% Rule and Other Lessons in Doing It All, Differently with Lexi Reese

  7. Jun 30

    The Problem Nobody Bothered to Solve with Patrice Meagher

    Patrice Meagher is the founder and CEO of MilkMate and a former Executive Vice President at CBRE, where she spent nearly 15 years shaping the commercial real estate landscape in Manhattan – while becoming a mother of four. She was, by almost any measure, succeeding. And she was also, by her own account, quietly losing the plot. Not because she wasn't capable. But because the system around her was never designed for what she was carrying. MilkMate has invented the category of BPaaS – breast pumping as a service – providing employers with a hospital-grade, fully managed pumping solution that saves working mothers an average of 60 minutes a day. Before she built it, Patrice pumped in IT closets, forgot parts, missed meetings, and arrived at a swim meet – parking ticket and all – just in time to watch her daughter touch the wall after the race was already over. In this conversation, we talk about what it actually costs to build a demanding career while breastfeeding, commuting, producing, and trying to hold it all together. We talk about the mentors – often men – who quietly shaped the direction of her career. We talk about what partnership really looks like inside a marriage when both people are building, and how one person's belief can be the thing that makes a risk feel possible. And we talk about what finally pushed Patrice to leave a world she loved to build something she believed in more. She didn't leave corporate America in defeat. She left because she could finally see the problem clearly enough to solve it. That's the thing about motherhood. Once it shows you what's broken, you can't unsee it. To learn more about MilkMate, follow them on Instagram (@milkmateinc) and LinkedIn. And if your workplace could benefit from MilkMate, speak up! You may be eligible for a $1,000 referral bonus if MilkMate gets installed through your recommendation. Patrice and her team have made it easy: you can find the employee referral toolkit at www.milkmate.com/for-employees/. ******* ⭐️ Follow The Mothers and leave a 5-star review if this resonated 💬 Share this episode with someone who needs to hear it 📱 Join The Mothers on Instagram @themotherspod ✍️ Subscribe to ⁠⁠Sara’s Substack⁠⁠ for reflections on life, work, meaning & motherhood 💼 Find Sara on ⁠LinkedIn The Mothers is a production of Backline Media.

    The Problem Nobody Bothered to Solve with Patrice Meagher

  8. Jun 23

    The Work You Never Planned to Do with Nasha Fitter | Motherhood, Rare Disease & Purpose

    What happens when motherhood asks you to do work you never imagined? For Nasha Fitter, it meant stepping into a world of rare disease, medical research, caregiving, and advocacy – not because she chose it, but because her daughter needed her to. After her daughter Amara was diagnosed with FOXG1 syndrome, a rare neurological disorder that affects brain development, movement, speech, and cognition, Nasha found herself navigating a healthcare system full of gaps, impossible decisions, and information families are often left to uncover on their own. In this episode, Sara sits down with Nasha Fitter – Co-Founder & CEO of the FOXG1 Research Foundation and Co-Founder & Chief Business Officer of Citizen Health – for a conversation about caregiving, partnership, resentment, self-sacrifice, and what it means to build a life – and find purpose – inside circumstances you never would have chosen. Together, they explore the invisible labor of parenting a medically complex child, the emotional weight of becoming your child’s advocate, and how some of life’s hardest experiences can become the clearest roadmap toward the work we’re here to do. They discuss: • Why women are often conditioned to confuse self-sacrifice with love • The importance of building more help and support than you think you need • Resentment in partnerships – and what it may be trying to tell us • The hidden labor of caregiving and rare disease parenting • What happens when parents are forced to become medical experts • Turning personal crisis into advocacy, action, and infrastructure • How technology and AI can help close critical healthcare gaps • The power of purpose in holding a life together Today, through both the FOXG1 Research Foundation and Citizen Health, Nasha is helping build a better future for patients and families – accelerating treatments, improving access to care, and making rare disease less isolating, more informed, and more human. Episode links: Download Citizen Health and explore Ari, their AI assistant: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/citizen-health/id6740156339 Follow the FOXG1 research journey: https://www.foxg1research.org/ Support FOXG1 Research: https://secure.qgiv.com/for/foxg1researchfoundation/ ⭐️ Follow The Mothers and leave a 5-star review if this resonated 💬 Share this episode with someone who needs to hear it 📱 Join The Mothers on Instagram @themotherspod ✍️ Subscribe to ⁠⁠Sara’s Substack⁠⁠ for reflections on life, work, meaning & motherhood 💼 Find Sara on ⁠LinkedIn The Mothers is a production of Backline Media.

    The Work You Never Planned to Do with Nasha Fitter | Motherhood, Rare Disease & Purpose
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4.8
out of 5
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About

Sara Brown sits down with the people shaping our world — extraordinary leaders, creators, and thinkers — to explore how their identity, purpose, and ambition evolve alongside career and motherhood. These conversations invite you to get curious about who you are, what you want, and why you want it — and leave you inspired to build a life that honors those answers. Raw, smart, and deeply human, The Mothers blends the emotional honesty of We Can Do Hard Things, the practical wisdom of Mel Robbins, and the intellectual depth of Brené Brown. Follow, review and join us on IG @themotherspod.

Information

  • Creator
    Backline Media
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    80
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Backline Media
  • Show Website
    The Mothers with Sara Brown

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