What’s a mom to do when one kid feels left out of outings his younger sibling gets to do while he’s at school? A listener about to move to a new city for just one year wants tips for finding mom friends quickly, and another listener’s question about how common it is for moms to feel the need to keep spirits up in a family with moodier characters really gets Meagan and Sarah thinking about their own families. Finally, a newer listener is curious about Meagan’s backstory of young motherhood and journey to becoming a mom of five. In Episode 374 we take these questions from our community and – for the first time! – include words of wisdom from members of our contributor team in addition to our own advice.
Today we're talking about advice: asking for it, giving it, and consuming it in general. Things have come a looong way since the days of Dear Abby (we're looking at you, Facebook crowdsourcing!), and in this fun More Than Mom conversation, Meagan and Sarah share how we individually show up when it comes to receiving advice, whether we're comfortable giving advice, and how it all has changed for us over the years. We also discuss our mutual fascination with advice-column culture and parse the difference between seeking wise counsel from trusted friends and looking for quick answers from the Internet hive mind.
We get dueling messages from our culture: On the one hand, come as you are! Accept yourself fully, imperfections and all. On the other hand, you deserve better! Here's what to do (and buy) to sleep better, eat better, look better, and feel better. It can be confusing to navigate a genuine desire to live your best life alongside the necessary self-acceptance it takes to feel like you're doing enough today. Do we have this figured out? We do not, but today we're here to talk about it. Meagan and Sarah share what self-improvement AND self-acceptance look like for them in the reams of wellness, career, mental health, and leisure - plus we reflect on what this balance has looked like at different seasons of motherhood.
Meagan's first baby shower was - wait for it - twenty-five years ago this summer. To bring her up to speed on how things are done nowadays and what's new in baby gear, gifting, and registries, Meagan is joined by Kia and Katherine from our contributor team. Both are seasoned moms who have seen trends evolve, and both have had babies much (much) more recently. Join us as we talk about the pros and cons to today's baby product landscape, what's changed and what hasn't, and what we'd do differently when registering for our very first baby shower. Kia and Katherine also share their must-have product recommendations and registry favorites while Meagan puts it all into context for us.
"How do you know when your family is complete?" is one of the most common listener questions we receive. Meagan and Sarah both now have several years of hindsight separating them from the baby and toddler years, and today we're reflecting on the idea of a "complete" family unit. We acknowledge that it doesn't necessarily look like what we imagined it would - and that for many moms there is uncertainty and even grief wrapped up in all of this - but we also find much to celebrate about the current and future states of our proverbial "family tables".
Not feeling like an expert in the housework realm? Turns out, very few of feel like we know what we are doing. Last week Meagan and Sarah talked about WHAT we do to keep our households in a state of "good enough," and this week's Part Two is all about the feelings that came up as we tracked a week of real-life housework. We dive into some of our insecurities as home managers, the difference between housework and mothering, and some of the really sticky aspects of finding your identity as a mom and homemaker in the 21st century. We have LOTs of thoughts - and we hope you'll join us!
What we remember from childhood helps build our narrative of who we were - even if those memories are fuzzy or slightly flawed. Today Meagan and Sarah get in the way-WAY-back machine and reflect on what we were like as kids and teens. As a child, Meagan was dreamy, imaginative, chatty, and obsessed with balloons (!!), while Sarah was studious, quiet-but-sociable, responsible, and circumstantially prone to tears. We touch on how our personalities developed as we grew up, whether we were “popular” or not, and if we felt clueless or confident come high school. Join us for this fun More Than Mom to get a glimpse into our growing up years (at least the way we remember it!).
Most of us enjoy having a clean and tidy home, but have you ever kept track of how much you do throughout the week to keep it that way? In today’s episode, Meagan and Sarah share what seven days of real-life housework looks like in our homes. We reflect on the tasks we knew went into running a home, and some surprising ones we thought of as housework before (like picking plums and chasing chickens!). Whether you prioritize deep-cleaning on a regular schedule or tend to tidy as you go and hope for the best, it’s eye-opening and gratifying to acknowledge the work that goes into managing a home full of kids.
If you travel with kids, it’s just a matter of time before a trip goes off the rails in spectacular fashion. Maybe it’s a flat tire in the middle of nowhere, or an expensive vacation spent sick in a pricey hotel room. Today Sarah is joined by Catie, Stacy, Emily and Lisa – regular contributors to the show and seasoned travelers with a combined 13 kids – who share their most memorable travel mishap stories. (Full disclaimer: there will be puke-talk.) In sharing these stories, we hope to normalize that travel with kids doesn’t have to go perfectly to be “worth it” and remind you that you’re not alone if this summer’s adventures go awry. Plus, one of the only perks to surviving stories like these is that we get to laugh about them later.
As moms, we can be hard on ourselves…and sometimes we just need to hear the simplest, oft-repeated pieces of advice and encouragement to remind us that it is all going to be OK. Join Meagan and Sarah for a reflection on eight pieces of wisdom that have carried us through motherhood struggles at every age and stage. We are offering them to you, to ourselves, and to all of our future selves in Episode 369.