Why Do You Parent Like That?

Blow me down, we've got a couple! It has been on my wishlist for a wee while now to have a couple speaking on their parenting experience together, and we got that this week with Britt and MJ Meafou! 

You may know MJ as @dadbehaviour on instagram. He shares his life as a Dad on there, but also has created a stroller club for dads in Christchurch! An opportunity for Dads to get together with their kids and other Dads and catch up. MJ is passionate about creating community for Dads in the postpartum stage, the way M...

Abby Bridgeman (@theearlydaysnewzealand), y'all. She has quickly become one of my favourite people, and I am really grateful to this podcast for introducing me to her. 

She wears so many hats: nurse, mum, neurodivergent, parenting educator, total badass, and we get into most of them on the pod! 

I could yap on for a long time about how much I appreciate and value her education and her friendship, but I think it's pretty evident in the episode. I am so grateful to her for her vulnerability and trusting me to share her story on this pl...

Haaaaaayyyyyooooo! 

Welcome back for another week! I'm so glad you're here! 

You have found this podcast while I am in the depths of norovirus and coming to you live from my bed. Everything hurts, chills, shakes, fever, headache. It's a whole thing. Which is WHY you will hear a weird automated intro from me this week. It's my words, but I truly did not have the strength to get out of bed and get my microphone to record the introduction. So, THIS was my solution. I got a bit silly with it sorry, I'm blaming si...

It's episode 2 of our bonus EXPERT episodes! If you don't know what these are, listeners from the WDYPLT community have the opportunity to submit questions to parenting-adjacent experts for them to be answered. This week Shrenika has 5 questions that she answers from listeners in the WDYPLT community, and she answers them beautifully! 

If you want to find Shrenika this is her website and this is her instagram! If you're thinking about getting some first aid knowledge, Shrenika is your gal! As I say in the episode, I have done a session with her and found it so t...

This week I had the joy of sitting down and speaking with Hannah Porter AKA the owner of Bear and Moo NZ! Bear and Moo obviously have a special place in my heart after they became the first ever sponsor of WDYPLT. It was absolutely lovely hearing about Hannah's journey to becoming a parent and her experience of parenthood, as well as running a business and how those two things intertwine. 

Hannah is kind, switched on, funny, and you can tell that she is just such a loving and proud mum. 

Hannah's other baby Bear and M...

Holy friggin' moly can you believe that Aotearoa radio kuīni Sharyn Casey chatted with me for an hour about her parenting ~*jOuRnEy*~?! I certainly can't! 

Sharyn sat down with me and shared so much about her experiences raising her two boys Tyson and Reuben with her husband (also radio royalty) Bryce Casey. 

We talk fertility struggles, the 11 week early baby and NICU experience, raising boys to be loving and inclusive, instilling good values, not swearing til you're 18, dealing with parenting in the public eye, wiping poo off scrotums and so much more.

Sha...

I know I bang on about it a lot, but I will just never get over how lucky I am that people as cool and interesting as Rāniera want to talk to me. Rāniera Procter (Ngāi Tāmanuhiri, Ngāti Porou) joined me for an incredibly insightful conversation about his whānau and the values they live. In particular his mission to raise his children with te reo Māori as their first language, a taonga he was also raised with. 

Rāniera is a father who walks the walk, but he's very honest that it t...

Your political ranting, mother-advocate, chaos aunties are back for another week! Here for your listening pleasure is the second half of my conversation with Charlotte Kells Robertson (aka @phdmamanz). In this episode, Charlotte answers the third, fourth, and fifth questions and as you can probably tell from the title, we manage to cover quite a lot of ground! (Us? Chatting? It can't be!) Charlotte, thank you for your knowledge and honesty and humour and alllll the taonga you gave me during this conversation. 

I know by this point you are all absolutely in love with Charlotte and h...

The best thing about this podcast is that I get to approach people I admire and get them to have a conversation with me, and that is exactly what happened in this situation. I have followed Charlotte Kells Robertson (aka @phdmamanz) for a good, long while now. Her knowledge and insight on motherhood has always left me looking like the mind-blown emoji, and this time she got to see that reaction in person! I could have spoken to Charlotte all night, but I had to cut it off at 2 hours (which is still one hour longer than we were...

Welcome to the very first episode of Why Do You EXPERT Like That? A bonus episode that you'll see every 6-ish weeks. I'm gonna be asking experts in parenting-adjacent spaces questions that have been submitted by listeners (you guys!) and get their big, big, beautiful brains to get some answers!

This week we had five listener submitted questions and Jo answered with love, empathy, kindness, and was so helpful! (imo).

If you haven't listened to her main episode (also in your feed now!) go back and listen, because some...

You guys.. I'm honestly lost for words. Jo Robertson is on the pod, and I'm cheesing so hard about it. If you can't tell by the grin plastered on my face throughout the whole episode, Jo is a bit of a personal inspiration for me professionally. She has done some seriously, seriously impressive work in the child advocacy and parenting education space, but she makes it so easy to digest! Her communication skills are next level, and you'll see those skills on display in this ep.

Jo was so generous with her story, and...

If you've ever wanted to see me try and act cool and normal around someone I have a crush on, this is your opportunity! The absolute charisma-bomb that is Steph Monks joins me on the pod this week, and she's exceeded all expectations of funny, relatable, and insightful.

You'll know Steph from her illustrious career in NZ radio, but she is currently keeping us entertained on our drives home with the Edge Arvos show! Steph and her lovely partner Jake have a one year old named Rocco, and hearing Steph speak about her journey...

Don't ever say I don't treat you right, my babies!!! It's a whole new segment coming to your feeds!

Why Do You Expert Like That is going to be a bonus episode that features alongside the main episode every 6 weeks or so. I'll be asking a parenting-adjacent expert 3-5 listener submitted questions and give them space to answer in a long-form way. IT'S SO COOL, Y'ALL!

Our first expert is Jo Robertson (@jorobertson.therapy), a NZAC registered counsellor who takes private clients but also does heaps of awesome courses...

Shut the front door, we've got a Dad!!! As I say in the introduction, something I've wanted from the beginning of this podcast is for this to be a space for parents of all genders. There are a lot of resources out there for mums and femme-identifying parents, and I think dads and masc-presenting parents can get a bit lost in the chaos. So I am so grateful that the wonderful Nic Haldezos (@nic_haldezos @nuggetcreative) agreed to be our first pod dad!

Not only that, but he came on and literally told me "...

Renata (@renataroaming) is just so, so cool. She's the founder of the Roam with Kids app and is on your social media feeds sharing all kinds of baby/kid friendly events and spaces.

Renata chatted with me this week about so many great topics, but I was particularly impressed with how politically clued in she is. Renata is passionate about changing the landscape so that birthing parents have just as much opportunity to crack the business world as non-birthing parents do.

I found our conversation so inspirational, and it gave me the affirmation I needed...

Buckle in, cos this is a goodie! Sophie Moskowitz joins Abbey for a brilliant conversation about her parenting journey and the isolation of parenting during COVID being the experience that sparked the idea of her business Imperfect Parents NZ.

Sophie has been a nanny, an ECE teacher, a parent, and is now an antenatal facilitator and parenting group facilitator, so parenting is her thing. Her wealth of knowledge and wisdom will leave you yelling "YES, AMEN" (like Abbey does a few times throughout the pod).

I could talk with Sophie for hours, and have plans...

This week the Aotearoa baby naming queen taking TikTok by storm Sonya Prior (@thebbnamer) is here! I forced Sonya to be my friend after finding her content because I knew we were birds of a feather, and I was totally right.

Sonya generously shared so much of her parenting story with me this week, including surprise pregnancies, her non-perfect births, not letting your childhood affect the childhood you create for your kids, finding the fun in everything, and how to not panic about the world maybe being on fire?

I understand why she is the...

Testing, testing.. is this thing on...?!

Wow, here we are! A brand new parenting pod! A huge thank you to my gal pal Jessie Peters for bringing her insight and experience to the inaugural episode of WDYPLT. We got to chat about so many different aspects of parenting, including myth busting a bunch of lies we get told as new parents!

Resources mentioned in this pod:

- Good Inside by Dr. Becky Kennedy

- The Invisible String by Patrice Karst

...