The Parenting Podcast

Summary

Some friendships become such a natural part of our lives that we hardly stop to think about them. But as we grow and change, we may begin to see those relationships a little differently. What do we do when we still value the friendship, but aren’t quite sure it should stay the way it’s always been?

Talk Notes

The subtle influence friendships have on who we’re becoming.

Recognizing when negativity, gossip, or criticism becomes part of a friendship.

Why our desire to bel...

SUMMARY

There’s something special about having women in our lives who really know us. Yet even when we long for those connections, friendships can slip to the edges of our busy lives. Maybe it’s time we gave a little more thought to just how much they matter.

TALK NOTES

Why making friends as an adult can feel surprisingly difficult.

The loneliness moms can experience, even when surrounded by people.

How friendships change through different seasons of motherhood.

Why friendship requires vulnerability, trus...

Summary

They did something wrong. You know it has to be addressed. But in that moment, how do you correct without losing the connection you’ll need to walk through what comes next? This is one of those stories that stays with you.

Talking Points

When a child makes a choice that is clearly wrong

Correcting without making shame the whole story

What empathy can change in a hard parenting moment

Why honesty from a parent can open the door to honesty from a child

Some parenting questions have clear answers. These were not those questions. We put a few of them on the table—and discovered how different they look from the other side of raising children.

Talk Notes

The parenting rules we swore we’d never break

What never came naturally to us

Battles we eventually decided weren’t worth fighting

What we think we actually did well

The parenting jobs we’re happy to leave behind

Where Mom and Dad handled things differently

What we...

As our kids grow up, who pays for what gets surprisingly complicated. Generosity is good. So is responsibility. Figuring out when the bill belongs to us—and when it belongs to them—is where things get interesting.

Talk notes:

The changing financial relationship as kids move toward adulthood

Generosity, responsibility, and knowing when each is appropriate

Looking at patterns: Is this a genuine need or ongoing irresponsibility?

What is our financial help producing?

Giving young adults real experience managing their own money

Gradually transferring financial resp...

We love our kids. We want to help. And sometimes we actually can fix what’s hard. But should we?

TALK NOTES

When helping gets complicated

Doing for our children what they need to learn to do for themselves

Why struggle isn’t necessarily harm

Building capacity instead of removing every difficulty

Scaffolding: support that’s meant to change

Knowing when to step in and when to step back

Giving our children room to grow in confidence and independence

Why th...

SUMMARY

There never seems to be quite enough of us to go around—and as parents, we feel that most with our children. When the hours are already spoken for, how do we make the time that’s still ours really count? This conversation was newly edited from an earlier episode of The Parenting Podcast.

IN THE CONVERSATION

Summary: We can spend a surprising amount of life looking ahead to what’s next—or back at what was. How do we keep both from taking too much of the life we’re living now?
Talk Notes:

We won’t be beside our children for every moment that shapes their day. But our influence doesn’t end where our reach does. What stays with them when they move beyond us?

IN THE CONVERSATION
• The difference between giving our children a strong sense of who they are and burdening them with who we expect them to be.
• How easily our own expectations can become weight our children carry—academically, socially, spiritually, or simply in trying to make us proud.
• Giving our children permission to fail, learn, apologize, and begin again.
•...

Our children have whole parts of their lives we’ll never witness. We can’t follow them into those moments—but we can become the place they want to return with them.

In the Conversation

The “invisible backpack” our children carry home from school, activities, friendships, and everyday life

Why connection—not simply information—changes the conversations we have with our children

Good questions that help children open up without making them feel interrogated

Why availability and timing matter, especially as children move into the teen years

How liste...

Public school, private school, homeschool—we can put a lot of weight on getting that choice right. But what if some of the things shaping our kids most have very little to do with where they go to school? As a new school year begins, we’re bringing back a conversation that might help us look at what matters a little differently.

IN THE CONVERSATION

• The difference between parenting principles and the methods we choose to live them out

• When our children’s education and performance become tangled up with our own identity

• Wha...

Most of us spend more time getting ready for school than getting ready for the season we’re about to live together. Sometimes one small, intentional change in an ordinary evening can quietly change the culture of a family.

Most parenting decisions don’t feel life-changing. They feel ordinary. But what if some of the smallest choices we make every day are quietly shaping who our children are becoming? Sometimes the difference isn’t finding the right answer—it’s asking a better question.

Why has the idea of a “‘90s summer” struck such a chord with parents? Maybe we’re not trying to bring back another decade. Maybe we’re trying to hold onto something we don’t want our children to miss.

Why has the idea of a “‘90s summer” struck such a chord with parents? Maybe we’re not trying to bring back another decade. Maybe we’re trying to hold onto something we don’t want our children to miss.

Sometimes our first response as parents isn’t wrong—it just comes too soon. We often speak or act before our children feel fully heard. What changes when our children no longer feel the need to edit themselves before they come to us?

Other people’s opinions will always be there. The harder question is how much influence they’ll have on your parenting. This conversation unpacks why those voices can feel so powerful and what helps us stand with greater confidence and clarity.

Most parents know the feeling. A look across the room. A raised eyebrow. A comment that li gers longer than it should. This conversation explores the pressure of parenting under the weight of other people’s opinions.

The desire to get parenting right can be a gift. It can also become a weight we were never meant to carry. Somewhere along the way, caring deeply can begin to feel a lot like carrying everything.

We all want to grow as parents. The question is whether we’re being shaped by wisdom—or by the pressure to become someone we think we’re supposed to be.

You spend years pouring your values into your children. Then one day they begin sorting through them for themselves. How do you hold onto what matters without letting go of each other?

Somewhere between good intentions and real life, a lot of parents end up feeling behind in this part of family life. This conversation pulls health back out of pressure and perfection and into something steadier, more realistic, and actually livable for everyday families.

Health and fitness can easily become tangled up with pressure, appearance, and performance — for parents and kids alike. This conversation pulls it back to something steadier: intentionality, sustainability, and the quiet ways families learn how to see themselves.

Resources Mentioned: Mullins Performance and Fitness. And Crawford Personal Training 

Family life is full of moments that don’t go the way we hoped they would — and so much of love is built in what happens next. This conversation starts with young moms raising little kids, but it reaches into something every parent recognizes: the long, imperfect, deeply human work of finding our way back to each other again.

Why can the smallest parenting decisions start feeling so big in the little-kid years? This honest conversation gets into the real-life pressure, questions, and tensions parents quietly carry every day.

Knowing what’s healthy is one thing—living it out is another. This conversation makes that shift feel doable.

Everyone has an opinion about food—but what do you actually do with all of it? This conversation starts to bring it back to something simpler, steadier, and real.

The things your kids care about may not make sense to you—but how you respond matters. This episode looks at how stepping into their world builds lasting connection.

The world is talking to your kids—are you in that conversation too? We’re starting something new to help you stay close right in the middle of it.

It’s easy to think traditions are about holidays or special moments, but they’re often doing something deeper. This conversation looks at how the things we repeat as a family begin to form identity, connection, and that quiet sense of “us” over time.

I can walk into a moment with my kids already holding a picture of how it’s supposed to go—and without even realizing it, I start pressing that onto them… and it quietly distorts what’s actually happening between us.

When a moment doesn’t go the way you pictured, it can quietly pull you away from the people right in front of you. This conversation names that shift—and what it looks like to come back to what actually matters.

Sometimes the tension with our kids isn’t about love or effort—it’s about being in the wrong lane. In this episode, we explore a simple way of thinking about relationships that might change how you show up with your child tonight.

Parenting doesn’t follow a simple rulebook. In this conversation, we explore how recognizing the “lane” we’re in with our children can change the way we connect, guide, and love them through every stage of our relationship.

 When there’s no margin left, even the life you love can feel tight. This conversation sits with that tension — and reminds you to stay steady in it.

Working motherhood isn’t about splitting yourself evenly. It’s about learning to live well inside the tension.

Working motherhood carries a real and heavy load that’s often unspoken. This conversation sits with the tensions, choices, and grace required along the way.

Sometimes you’re giving everything you have as a parent and still not seeing much come back yet. This episode names that stretch and why it’s part of loving over the long haul.

 Parenting doesn’t happen in resets—it happens in motion. A thoughtful conversation about time, growth, and living well inside the everyday.

The calendar changed, but life didn’t reset. Four women talk honestly about growth, pressure, and parenting without the illusion of starting over.