What Fresh Hell: Laughing in the Face of Motherhood Margaret Ables and Amy Wilson

Why do we find it hard to stay connected to our friends without kids? Does the total separation of our daily experience, once we become parents, mean those friendships cannot remain the same?
Allison P. Davis's recent cover story for New York magazine, When One Friend Has a Baby and the Other Doesn't, explored this dilemma from the childfree-by-choice point of view. Here's our own take on how our friendships have morphed and changed since we became parents.
In this episode we discuss:

Why our friends without kids aren't wrong to be annoyed by us sometimes

Why we’re not conditioned to put the same amount of effort into friendships as we do other relationships

How to know if a friendship is worth the long-term effort


Here are links to some other resources mentioned in this episode:

Christine Organ for Motherly: Motherhood feels lonelier than ever


Fortesa Latifi for The Washington Post: "Spoon theory: What it is and how I use it to manage chronic illness"



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Do we have the authority to keep other kids off their own devices in our home?
A listener wrote in to ask:
"How have you all handled other kids' devices in your home? My 9-year-old daughter has neighborhood friends come over most days. There is an 11-year-old with an iPhone and little to no restrictions on its use. Is it overstepping to say that if another kid's device comes in, it has to stay on our kitchen table until they leave?"
Margaret says that it's totally within your control to decide how devices are used in your own house. Have a basket where phones and tablets can be placed at the beginning of a playdate. Or allow their use only in the areas of the house where you can monitor their use.
Don't feel bad about keeping a hard line, even if you get comments or eyerolls from kids. You'll feel much better if you don't have to constantly worry about what kids might be doing on their devices in your house—because that really is your responsibility.

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How can we talk about America’s ongoing legacy of racism without sliding into despair? In his new memoir HOW FAR TO THE PROMISED LAND, Esau McCaulley tells his own story—and questions why Black failure is judged collectively, while Black success is perceived as the merit of an individual.
Rev. Esau McCaulley, PhD, is an author and associate professor of New Testament at Wheaton College. His work has been published in The New York Times, The Atlantic, the Washington Post, and Christianity Today.
Esau and Amy discuss:

Why "escaping poverty" is a misleading term

How experiences that set the context for heroic bravery also create the possibility for failure

What caused Esau to change his definition of justice


Here's where you can find Esau:

www.esaumccaulley.com

@OfficialEsauMcCaulley on Facebook

@esaumccaulley on Twitter on Instagram

Buy HOW FAR TO THE PROMISED LAND: https://bookshop.org/a/12099/9780593241080



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How do we maintain healthy relationships with our extended family, whether they live five or five hundred miles away? Amy and Margaret talk about how their own extended families operate, and what works best to keep everyone connected.
Amy and Margaret discuss:

The types of conflicts that extended families typically experience

The value of extended family—whether or not they live nearby

How to model healthy extended family relationships for your kids


Here are some links to further reading on the topic:

Michele Meleen for Love to Know: Definition of Extended Families: Meanings and Roles


Kiley Hurst for Pew Research Center: More than half of Americans live within an hour of extended family


Frank Bruni for The NYT: "Tolstoy and Miss Daisy"


Megan Carnegie for BBC Family Tree: The tensions that fan tricky in-law relationships


Karen L. Fingerman, et. al, for Purdue University: In-Law Relationships Before and After Marriage: Husbands, Wives, and Their Mothers-in-Law


Fatherly: 16 Tips For Creating Healthy Boundaries With Your Extended Family



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How do we get our savvy stallers to get ready for bed in a reasonable amount of time? Amy gives a listener some tools for speeding up a bedtime slowpoke.
Nici came to our Facebook group to ask:
"Please help this mom of a very smart and savvy 11-year old who is some kind of Jedi master of STALLING. He knows it’s bedtime. He doesn’t want to go to bed. But instead of outright complaining, he subtly and consistently stalls his bedtime by doing little tiny things to stall the process. Pointing out each little thing he’s doing in order to stall is annoying and only makes him dig his heels in more. I love him so much, and I know this is all probably a ploy for attention, BUT COME ON. I feel like we give him a LOT of attention throughout the day and in general. What can I do?"
What is your kid getting out of stalling? Maybe they do want to just stay up later. It could be that his bedtime needs to be rolled back by half an hour.
You can also try doing the unpreferred activities before the preferred one. All the bedtime stuff (homework, shower, pajamas, teeth, whatever it is) comes before the preferred activity (TV, gaming, time with you).
When something with a kid becomes an ongoing struggle, the best place to start is to ask these two questions: what can I add? What can I take away?
You might add external motivation, rewards, a later weekend bedtime.
You might take away your presence while he stalls, the dog that is there to distract him, the sugary treats that might be revving him up.
Work these dials one at a time, and have patience. Once you figure out a kid's secondary gain, and/or the currency that motivates them, things will usually fall into place.

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For trusted protection, choose Pampers, the #1 Pediatrician Recommended Brand. Download the Pampers Club App today to start earning free diapers.
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After Minna Dubin's New York Times essay on mom rage went viral, she received hundreds of messages from other parents, thanking her for daring to explore something most of us would rather pretend doesn't exist. Dubin was therefore inspired to write the new book MOM RAGE: The Everyday Crisis of Modern Motherhood, to explore what exactly mom rage is, where it comes from, and what we can do about it.
Minna's writing has appeared in the New York Times, Salon, Parents, among others, and as a leading feminist voice on mom rage, Minna has appeared on MSNBC, Good Morning America, and NPR.
In this interview, Minna and Amy discuss:

Why mom rage is a complex multi-phase physiological and psychological cycle that starts long before we explode

The societal neglect of mothers, and how it contributes

What does—and doesn't—work to mitigate our mom rage


We discussed Minna's original essay, and our own takes on mom rage, in this additional episode.
Here's where you can find Minna:

@minnadubin on IG, Twitter, Threads

https://minnadubin.com

Buy MOM RAGE: https://bookshop.org/a/12099/9781541601307



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