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For this 250th episode of the podcast we’re taking a look at the state of modern fatherhood. First we’re talking to stand-up comedian, writer and political activist Charlie Demers. He’s one of dozens of notable Canadians who, through interviews, have contributed to a great new book of essays called 40 Fathers: Men Talk About Parenting. The book was written by family counsellor and writer Tessa Lloyd, who joins us in the second part of this episode to talk about what compelled her to gather the points of view of dads at this particular time.
Show Notes
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Today we welcome Vanessa Vakharia back to the show. Vanessa is the founder of a unique tutoring facility called The Math Guru here in Toronto. She’s a teacher with a Bachelor of Commerce, a Masters in Mathematics Education and the author of a great math workbook for kids called Math Hacks: Cool Tips + Less Stress = Better Marks. She’s been on before to discuss topics like encouraging girls to pursue STEM careers, but this time she’s here to talk “Math Therapy,” her new podcast where she works through a guest’s math trauma every week so that they can start living their best lives. I reveal a little of my own math-related mindset issues, and she talks to us about how we can ensure our kids don’t inherit a legacy of struggles with math.
Show Notes
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For this episode we speak to child psychologist Dr. Vanessa LaPointe. Vanessa is the author of two books, including her latest Parenting Right From the Start: Laying a Healthy Foundation in the Baby and Toddler Years.
But this episode is not about the baby and toddler years. It’s about the investigation into ourselves that Dr. LaPointe argues is so necessary in order to parent the way we want to. She explains how we can work through issues from the past that inevitably have an effect on how we respond to the challenges and demands of raising our own kids.Show Notes
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With this episode we’re continuing our exploration into the lives of families affected by incarceration. I’m joined by Andrea Page, the founder of FitMom, one of the first providers of pre- and post-natal fitness classes in the Greater Toronto Area, and an outspoken advocate on issues like postpartum depression and mental health in general. Andrea’s eldest child has struggled for years with his mental health and unfortunately found himself on the wrong side of the law, and is currently serving a six-year prison sentence. Andrea and I are going to talk about the connections between poor mental health, trauma and incarceration, and what it’ll take to break the cycle that connects trauma to crime.
Show Notes
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This week begins our foray into the lives of families affected by incarceration. It’s not an easy subject, but it’s one that affects many Canadian families and an even more in the United States, where one in 28 children has a parent who is incarcerated. My first guest on this topic is Rachel Mascarenas Ford. Rachel lives in North Carolina with her son, daughter and husband, Mark, who returned in April 2018 from five years in a minimum-security federal prison known as a camp. She shares about how her husband came to be in trouble with the law and the night that turned their lives upside down. We also talk about how they managed as a family while he was away, how little resources there are to support families of the incarcerated, and what it’s been like adjusting to his return.
Show Notes
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We’re joined this week by Dr. Marika Lindholm, a sociologist and advocate for the diverse group of women raising kids solo. She’s the co-editor of a new anthology about solo moms. It’s called We Got This: Solo Mom Stories of Grit, Heart and Humor. She and I talk a little bit about her own journey to single motherhood, how it led her to found a social platform called Empowering Solo Moms Everywhere (ESME), and what it’ll take to make the path a little easier for moms raising kids on their own today and in the future.
Show Notes
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This week we welcome Jeffrey Marsh to the show. Jeffrey is one of the world's foremost commentators on non-binary identity and activism. They rose to prominence with inspirational viral videos, first shared on Vine and now on Twitter and Instagram. Jeffrey is both the first non-binary activist and spokesperson to appear on national television in the U.S., and also the author of a book called How to Be You. CBS once called them “the internet’s most beloved anti-bully.” They’ve also got a wonderful TedX Talk called “I'm a genderfluid activist. Here's how I fight back.” Jeffrey shares about growing up queer in a conservative, rural environment and how that shaped the work they do speaking to schools and drawing attention to the mental health crisis faced by trans, non-binary and genderfluid youth.
Show Notes
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We’re back to exploring family in its many with this episode, where we’re joined by Emily McGranachan, who tells us about growing up with two moms. Emily’s professional life has also been shaped by her upbringing. She’s director of family engagement for the Family Equality Council, the national organization in the U.S. dedicated to the equality of LGBTQ people and their families, as well as those who wish to form families. And she’s the host of the Council’s great podcast, Outspoken Voices.
Show Notes
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We’re continuing our exploration of what it’ll take to make parenting more sustainable, this week with a focus on how critical it is to cultivate community and share our stories. I’m delighted to welcome Kerrie Lee Brown back to the show. Kerrie first came on the podcast way back on episode 108, when she shared the story of how it took having a heart attack to get her to slow down. That was also the subject of her book, My Heart, My Self: A heartfelt guide for women who do too much. Kerrie has launched a storytelling platform called Red Lily to bring women together to lift each other up. Kerrie and I are going to talk about some of the isolation parents go through at different stages of parenting and why it’s so vital we come together to share the good, bad and seriously ugly.
Show Notes
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Start asking around groups of parents, perhaps especially moms, and increasingly it seems we’re hanging on by a thread. With competing demands of work and family, we’re often hovering on the edge of burnout, if not totally fried all ready. Today I chat with Natalie Ruskin, a journalist-turned-professional-coach who has a business called The MoMentum helping high-achieving moms, many of whom find themselves in periods of struggle while trying to keep up. Natalie joins me for a deep dive into burnout, why it happens and how we can use it as a catalyst for change.
Show Notes
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We kick off the fall with one of several episodes coming up that explores what it will take to make modern-day parenthood more sustainable and less overwhelming. We’ll be looking at the social and economic factors that make caring for a family feel like such a herculean effort. Caitlyn Collins says the work-life conflict experienced by parents — especially moms — should be considered a national crisis. An assistant professor at Washington University, Dr. Collins has done some groundbreaking research on this topic, interviewing working middle class mothers in Sweden, Germany, Italy and the United States over five years. She’s compiled this in a compelling book called Making Motherhood Work: How Women Manage Careers and Caregiving. In it she makes the case that nothing short of a revolution in both public policy and — critically — cultural believes, with bring about the changes that families need both in the United States and in Canada.
Show Notes
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I’m joined for this episode by Tammy Sharrow, a long-time neonatal nurse and associate professor of nursing at Mount Royal University in Calgary. Along with her co-author Karen Lasby, she’s written a new book on life with a premature baby. It’s called Preemie Care: A Guide to Navigating the First year with Your Premature Baby. Tammy joins me to discuss the landscape of premature birth in Canada and some of what parents need to know about caring for a newborn infant and raising them up from there. We also talk about what parents of premature babies wish other people would know.
Show Notes
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It’s an absolute thrill for me to welcome celebrated, four-time Canadian Olympian Silken Laumann to the show. Many of you will remember Silken’s remarkable story as one of Canada’s most beloved and accomplished Olympic rowers. In 1992 she was warming up for the World Cup Regatta in Germany when another boat collided with hers at full speed. Her lower right leg received devastating injuries to bone and muscle and she was told she’d never compete at the Olympics again. But 10 weeks later she won an Olympic Bronze medal. Overcoming that difficulty is part of what’s made Silken a role model for others to overcome difficult circumstances. It’s part of what inspired her to write her book, Unsinkable, and now to host a storytelling website by the same name, with a mission to empower Canadians to achieve better mental, physical and spiritual health. With four kids in her blended family, Silken works hard to cultivate an atmosphere that’s honest and truthful about the tough stuff we go through, including mental illness. Silken speaks frankly about being raised by mother who has never accepted the help she needed for her mood disorder, as well as about Silken’s own bouts with depression. She and I delve into what it takes to cultivate a culture of openness about mental health and comfort with vulnerability in our families.
Show Notes
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The departure for college or university represents a huge shift in our relationship with our nearly adult children. But, wow, can seem that they still have a lot of independence to achieve before they’ll be ready to make do without us. How do we achieve a sweet spot between supporting teens as they enter their post-secondary years, without helicoptering the heck out of them? Psychologist and best-selling parenting author Sara Dimerman marries her personal experience with two university-age daughters, as well as her expertise as a therapist, in her newest book called Don’t Leave, Please Go: What You and Your Teen Need to Know Before Heading to University or College.
Show Notes
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I’m joined for this episode by a mother and her adult son. Elaine and Jake Uskoski are here to share their experience with Jake’s video game addiction. They’ve started to share their story to help other families learn to identify where enthusiasm for digital play crosses into unhealthy territory and what it takes to come out of it when video games have taken over a young person’s life. Elaine has also written about this candidly in her book, Seeing Through the Cracks.
Show Notes
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It’s my delight to be able to bring you a remarkable and important story today. I’m joined by author Stephanie Land, who has become known for her unflinching writing on poverty and motherhood. Stephanie writes about her years seeking out an existence for herself and her daughter through her work as a housekeeper. She writes about her struggle to make ends meet, her reluctance use of food stamps and the bigotry she encountered for needing to access social services. But she also chronicles her efforts to keep alive her dream of going to university and becoming a writer something she nurtured in blog posts about her life with her daughter and getting by in those years. Since then her work has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Vox, Salon and elsewhere. Her book Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay and a Mother’s Will to Survive is already a New York Times bestsller that’s been met with all kinds of critical acclaim. Although her circumstances have now changed, Stephanie remains active in fighting to change the stigma surrounding people in poverty, especially single mothers. Stephanie lives in Montana but while in Toronto to give in a talk she visited me in my small home studio.
Show Notes
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For this episode, we welcome Leisse Wilcox back on the show. Leisse is a writer, coach, speaker and mom of three. She writes a very inspiring blog about personal growth, self-love and more at leissewilcox.ca and uplifts so many others through her community on Instagram. Leisse last joined us to talk about how divorce can be a springboard for personal growth. Since then she’s had some pretty major stuff going on, which she seems to have handled with a whole lot of grace and strength, but also with a lot of support from her community. Today Leisse and I talk about just how critical it is to gather community around you in times of need, as well as how she talked to her three daughters about the health challenge she faced.
Show Notes
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Cooking for a group, sending lunch to school, is a different business these days. Something like 40 per cent of children are affected by life-threatening food allergens, and as my guest for today’s episode has found, many people don’t grow out of them. However, Amanda Orlando hasn’t let her food allergens stop her from making food a treasured part of her life. She’s just released her second cookbook, Everyone’s Welcome: The Art of Living and Eating Allergen-Free. While preparing lunch together at her condo in Toronto, Amanda and I chat about her experiences with anaphylactic reactions and how they’ve affected her. We also talk about Amanda’s quest to make it easier for people with serious food allergies have safe and delicious times around the table with family and friends.
Show Notes
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There are times when the dynamics between our kids and their friends are sort of baffling. When things are going smoothly, everything is great. But when there’s friendship drama and hurt feelings, when friendships break down or there’s routine exclusion, it’s so hard to try to navigate these things. It’s also hard to know when we should intervene and when we should just leave things alone. To discuss these tricky issues I’m joined this episode by child development and parenting expert Caron Irwin, a mom of three and the founder of Roo Parenting, where she provides parents of kids zero to 12 with support to navigate the adventures and challenges of parenting. Caron shares some really great wisdom on where our roles lie in this arena and how we can support our kids to find their way to healthy friendships.
Show Notes
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Parents do a lot of hand wringing about the amount of time our kids spend on devices. And there are some good reasons for that. Naturally we want to make sure our kids aren’t leading sedentary lives and that they’re not just playing Fortnite or Minecraft, but getting a reasonably healthy amount of time outdoors. On top of this we have a tendency to worry that all these video games are turning our kids into antisocial automatons who won’t be able to interact well in the quote-unquote real world. But my guest for this episode has a very reassuring message about the digital lives of our children, and points out that, well, the digital world is in fact part of today’s real world. Jordan Shapiro is writer and psychologist who explores the intersections of digital play and family life. He’s the author of an absolutely fascinating new book called The New Childhood: Raising Kids to Thrive in a Connected World. Jordan contextualizes the anxiety parents have about this new form of play and storytelling by placing it in the fascinating history of how grown-ups have always responded to new steps in the evolution of child’s play.
Show Notes
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