Mom to Mom Podcast Kate Battistelli, September McCarthy, Jamie Erickson

As women, we live in a world of confusion and comparison over our bodies. Even our womanhood is under “attack.” Raising girls in this next generation with healthy body image is even more challenging in a day when social media heavily influences what we see, think and choose to do or not to do with our minds and our bodies because a healthy body image begins in the mind!

A lot of times, women in our circles speak of childbirth or motherhood as an attack on their body image, but we have been doing some deep thinking on this and if we are being completely honest, any struggles we had with our bodies began long before we had any children!

Listen in this episode as we discuss our own struggles with body image, and share some of the ways we've found to make peace with how God has fearfully and wonderfully created us!  You can join the conversation over on Instagram at @momtomompodcast!

In episode 92, The Well-Read Mother with Jennifer Pepito, Jennifer shared with us all about how reading great books has shaped her motherhood. As we alluded to in that episode, we have been shaped by books too! So in this episode, we want to flip the mic back around and have our chance to share with you some of the books we continue to go back to – books that have mothered us.  

Be sure to grab our list of the many favorites that we just couldn’t get to in this recording – books that maybe didn’t fit one of these specific categories but which has walked through a different season with each of us! The list is at the show notes for this episode on The Mom to Mom Podcast website.

The best kind of mentor for motherhood is a real life one, but sometimes that’s just not possible. When needed, a book can be a great alternative.  Fortunately, we've had Titus 2 examples and the wisdom of other trusted women in our lives because we’ve always surrounded ourselves with good books. Voices of encouragement, discipleship, and practical help have rung out to us from these pages and have helped shape our day-to-day faithfulness to our husbands, our children, our ministry commitments, our walk with the Lord…pretty much every area of our lives!

In today's episode, Jamie Erickson and September McCarthy speak with Jennifer Pepito, author of Mothering By the Book: the Power in Reading Aloud to Overcome Fear and Recapture Joy. They discuss the importance of reading aloud to your kids, making time for personal reading in the busyness of our day, and options for the mom who isn't a reader.

We’d love to know what books have been meaningful to you. Which ones do you find yourself going back to again and again for wisdom, for spiritual discipleship, for practical advice? Join us over on Instagram or Facebook to continue the discussion. 

Resources & Links

Mothering By the Book: the Power in Reading Aloud to Overcome Fear and Recapture Joy by Jennifer Pepito, www.motheringbythebook.com
The Peaceful Press Shop
Jennifer Pepito on Instagram at @thepeacefulpress and @jenniferpepito

When was the last time you took a "date night?" Is this an outdated, old-fashioned idea that seems elusive to busy parents who cannot even find time for a minute alone? 

This episode is all about date nights and how we make it happen even when we aren’t feeling the “love?” Maybe that’s you? Or maybe you have tried date nights and have just run out of ideas or haven’t considered the importance of this time away?

Don’t forget to check out our date night list in the show notes for this episode on The Mom to Mom Podcast website (and this time, we will include them on our Instagram feed as well.)

Try a date night. What do you have to lose?

In today's episode, we're talking about the little years, and although we have all graduated or semi-graduated from those days, we walked through them for a long time and the conversation is never dull or old when we remember or re-invite others to the table to talk about those very formative and busy, crazy years.

For links to some of our favorite practical hands-on helpful tools and resources, as well as ideas to help you bring the Word to life in the lives of your littles, please visit the show notes for this episode on The Mom to Mom Podcast website!

Tis the season. Or at least ‘tis almost the season. Now is the time to start making a Christmas list for all the special people in your life. We don’t know about you, but we don’t want the marketing gurus of Target and Walmart to determine what to put under our trees! Instead of just searching the sales ads or the store shelves for some random something, we find it more helpful to mull over the recommendations of trusted friends – folks who have used and enjoyed certain things and can vouch for their value.

So, that’s what we do in today's episode – we'll be the friends that share what we’ve enjoyed, what our people have enjoyed – in case... like us... you find it helpful to have a few recommendations to get you started as you plan gifts for your people.

For links to all the gift ideas mentioned, please visit the show notes for this episode on The Mom to Mom Podcast website!