Kelly Corrigan Wonders

In this episode, writer Megan Cathlin shares a eulogy written four decades after her father's death by suicide when she was five years old. She reflects on the man he was—a musician, philosopher, and deep thinker whose hands found truth at the piano—and the weight he carried in an era before vulnerability had language. Kaplan wrestles with childhood confusion about sin and punishment, ultimately arriving at a profound understanding: that people can be both radiant and struggling, that suffering doesn't diminish worth, and that love remains even when someone chooses to leave. Through her words, she offers her father what he couldn't give himself—permission to be human, flawed, and enough. Check out Meghan's book: Leading With the Heart: The Courage to Trust Your Inner Wisdom and Rewrite Your Life To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Journalist and author Amanda Ripley cuts through the noise with a startling fact: America is on track for its lowest murder rate since 1960, yet most Americans believe the opposite. Kelly shares insights from Amanda's Substack "Unraveled," examining how we've become so disconnected from reality, why conflict entrepreneurs profit from our fear, and what it would look like if media corrected our biases instead of amplifying them. Amanda points to researchers tracking the actual data on political violence, cancer mortality, and public perception, then asks three simple questions we should answer every time we share a story: How often is this happening? Is it getting better or worse? What can we do about it? The antidote to apocalyptic thinking, she argues, isn't denial—it's action, context, and a willingness to see what's actually there. Learn more about Amanda and her work at https://www.thegoodconflict.com/ To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Anna Quindlen and Kelly share readings, stories and insights on the art of holidaying, regular-people style - and focus on why showing up for those we love matters so very much. Special dro- in by Kelly’s brother, Booker. (Previously aired) If you love Anna Q, you’ll enjoy episodes 24-28 from March 2021. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Kelly shares a grandson's eulogy that captures the essence of an extraordinary relationship with his grandmother. Through William Wallace's memories, we see how his "Grams" created magic through simple but meaningful traditions – from crafting elaborate birthday desserts to transforming spaces just for him – demonstrating how the deepest family bonds are built through consistent presence and thoughtful attention to what makes someone feel special. (Previously aired) To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A father in Dublin watches through a car window as his five-year-old son talks to his mother in the front seat—the pale face in the glow of headlights, the hands clasped to the seatbelt, the bare arm raised to point at something. He can't hear a word, but he knows everything about that conversation that truly matters. In this final Go To episode featuring Duncan Keegan's TED talk from Kelly's curated session on AI and family life, a man who lost his son explores what we're really for—being present with each other in ways that require courage, sacrifice, and our full living selves—especially in moments of profound loss and grief. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Anna Quindlen and Kelly work through pre-game jitters about the holidays and how they might turn out okay after all. Kelly shares a reading on the ever-present need for forgiveness. Special guest appearance by Kelly’s brother, Booker. (Previously aired) If you enjoyed this episode with Anna Quindlen, please check out Kelly Corrigan Wonders episodes 24-28 featuring Anna Quindlen and podcaster Anna Sale for a series on “How to Make the Most of Family Life”. Please subscribe, rate and review us wherever you listen to podcasts! We read and appreciate every review. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What happens when you show up for someone else's joy while carrying your own grief? A mother steps away from caregiving for 72 hours to witness a bat mitzvah, and discovers that being woven into someone else's celebration—the photo shoots, the prayers, the hours on the dance floor—can lift sorrow without erasing it. This is Emma Nadler's reflection on how we need each other not despite what we're going through, but because of it. Emma Nadler is the author of The Unlikely Village of Eden: A Memoir, and is working on a novel. For more information, check out www.emmanadler.com  To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A scientist and entrepreneur built an AI to intercept every interruption in family life—the basketball emails, the field trip forms, the play rehearsal schedule buried at the bottom of a message. Then, an investor suggested the product could do more: text the sitter automatically, send birthday wishes to friends, suck up every teacher email so parents never see another one, and Avni Patel Thompson realized something didn't feel right. In this Go To episode featuring Avni's TED talk from Kelly's curated session on AI and family life, a mother who designs AI products for families discovers that not all friction is bad—some of it creates connection. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A text arrives: want to help build a movement around Jonathan Haidt's new book? Within a week, Alexa Arnold is sitting in his NYU office discussing how to change the world—and then she's in a hot tub with friends having a panic attack because she can't figure out how to do this massive job and raise an 18-month-old at the same time. In this final episode of The Tryhards—a three-part series for ambitious parents trying to be the best version of themselves day by day—Kelly talks with Alexa Arnold and Kate Cockrell about intensive parenting, impossible standards, and what it means to choose work you love while raising humans who need you. Through conversations about performing motherhood online, the merge of adult world and kid world, and why competence plus joy might be the actual goal, they explore how modern parenting became unsustainably intense and whether caring for your own purpose is actually one of the best things you can do for your kids. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In 1974, a suburban housewife named Pat Tiehel (aka PT), submitted an essay to a women's magazine about being angry at a system that gave her education and aspirations, then kept her pinned up at home. The magazine rejected it. One year later, everything changed. This is the essay PT's daughters found tucked away in their mom's papers after she died—a document of wanting more...and what happened next. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Andy Laats thought parenting was a complete alphabet—he did A through M, his wife Liz handled N through Z. After she died of ovarian cancer, he learned he'd underestimated the N through Z work, and then discovered there was a whole world beyond language he never even knew existed. In this Go To episode featuring Andy's TED talk from Kelly's curated session on AI and family life, a CEO learns what a mother knows—that the prize of parenting isn't in mastering the logistics or even the emotional check-ins, but in earning access to something beyond words. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's underneath mom rage and why does it keep happening? In this second episode of The Tryhards—a 3-part series for ambitious parents trying to be the best version of themselves day by day—Kelly talks with Alexa Arnold and Kate Cockrill about the impossible expectations we set, the tasks we hoard, and what our rage is really trying to tell us. This is a conversation about suppression, resentment, love and the moments when mercy appears from the most unexpected places. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A mother stands to speak about her son Pierce—the boy who had style, a memorable laugh, and a way of making ordinary moments feel like love. Lesley Hu delivered this eulogy after Pierce was shot and killed by his father during a custody dispute, one of roughly 52 children murdered each year by a parent or stepparent amid legal negotiations over divorce, separation, or custody. This is Lesley's tribute to her kind, hilarious, energetic boy, and her pledge to transform unspeakable tragedy into meaning through Pierce's Pledge, a campaign working to reduce violence against children by encouraging temporary weapon storage during family law disputes. To learn more about Pierce's Pledge, visit: https://www.piercespledge.org/ To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A Maasai girl grows up milking cows at dawn, walking ten kilometers for water, sleeping eight to a bed, surrounded by 38 siblings and five mothers who all knew her name and sang her song. Then she leaves for the city—chosen husband, three children, a laptop, shoes with zippers. Kelly shares Ndinini Kimesera Sikar's TED talk about living in two worlds and the question that haunts her: what do we preserve as we rush toward the future? In the village, mental health was strong because life included everything research now tells us we need—movement, nature, community, belonging. In modern life, we've traded all of that for autonomy and advancement, filling bookstores with self-help guides trying to teach us what we once knew naturally. As AI promises to manage even more of family life, Ndinini asks us to pause and decide: do we know what we want to keep and do we know how we'll protect it before the current sweeps us away? To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this first episode of "The Tryhards"—a three-part series for ambitious parents trying to be the best version of themselves day by day—Kelly talks with social impact entrepreneur Alexa Arnold and leadership coach Kate Cockrill about why we track our kids, what we're really searching for when we check our phones at midnight and the hard truth that all this data doesn't actually keep anyone safer. Through stories about location apps, late-night panic and learning when to step back, they explore the gap between monitoring and mattering and discuss how to recognize when you're filling your own need for intimacy rather than protecting your child from danger. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A woman named Karen Burke listened to an episode of Thanks For Being Here and felt an overwhelming sense of certainty about something she'd never considered before. Kelly shares a remarkable full circle story that began with listener Jennifer Cramer-Miller's letter thanking her anonymous kidney donor and ends somewhere none of us could have predicted. This is about what happens when someone else's words move you so deeply that listening isn't enough— and how sharing our experiences can ripple outward with consequences we'd never imagine possible. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Babies attach to whoever responds to them—mother, father, grandmother, or machine. Kelly shares anthropologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy's TED talk about what makes humans fundamentally different from other apes: we're "other-regarding," wired to care about what others think and feel. Through 6 million years of evolution, Sarah reveals why shared care isn't just helpful—it's how our species survived. But if babies will bond with anyone (or anything) that's reliably responsive and if AI can be programmed to respond faster and more consistently than exhausted parents, are we about to create a new species? This conversation wrestles with whether our defining human trait—empathy built through messy, imperfect relationships—might disappear before we even realize what we've lost. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As a 19 year old, Letitia Hanke took a job as a receptionist at the local roofing company. Within 10 years, she bought the business she has now been running (and growing) for 2 decades. If you want to remember that anything is possible, this conversation will wake you up to the possibilities. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A kitchen clock keeps perfect time for 55 years, witnessing countless conversations and quiet moments above a kitchen table. Kelly reads Jerry Kinkead's tribute to her brother-in-law Huck, a story about enduring presence and the people who stay steady when everything else shifts. Through memories of a reliable GE clock and the man who gifted it, Jerry remembers someone who was steady, curious, funny and always there. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When someone admits they're struggling at 2 AM, should they have to wait until morning to talk to another human? Kelly shares her TED stage conversation with Dr. Allison Darcy, creator of Woebot, an AI therapy tool used by over 1.5 million people. From questions about who profits when we share our deepest fears to whether perfect AI responsiveness might make us reject messy human relationships, this conversation explores what happens when technology enters our most vulnerable moments. Through reflections on business models, red lines and the surprising ways people use AI as practice for real conversations, Kelly and Allison wrestle with whether these tools are helping us become more human or less—and how we might tell the difference before it's too late. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices