freemom, conversations for modern mothers

I recently drenched myself in an article from NPR called, “The Period Talk You Never Got” which had me both hysterically reliving awkward after-school tutorials in my elementary school auditorium and feeling completely mortified by how little I actually knew about something that happens to my body every single month. What bothered me even more than my naivety was the fact that menstruation still seems to be this red veil of shame. Sure, we complain about the symptoms to our inner circle of girlfriends and our spouses may look to tread a bit more lightly at certain times of the month, but besides the obligatory “welcome to womanhood” chat during our pre-teen years and the exhaustive tracking that comes along with getting pregnant, menstruation really kind of flies under the radar - much like so many other vital components of women’s health.So today we’re going to do a deep dive on periods with a really cool expert who believe it or not, loves her time of the month. With me today is Heather Allmendinger, a former corporate administrative manager who hated her cycle and struggled with the pain that came with it every month. After earning her certifications as a Health Coach focused on conception and pregnancy, Heather saw the challenges others were experiencing and decided to go all in. She quit her corporate job and started her business, Vivydus, as a Menstrual Cycle Consultant, teaching workshops and coaching others on how to embrace the ovulatory cycle and use it as a tool for self-care, empowerment, fertility, productivity, and inclusive emotional leadership. From mental health and managing relationships to raising changemakers and advocating for support, freemom is a podcast dedicated to ensuring that every mom feels heard. You can find us on the gram at @freemomcast or on the web at www.freemomcast.com. You can also support the show and help fund production with a sweet little five-dollar donation right here. Thanks for listening!

I had a conversation with another mom recently that inspired this episode today. I myself had a happy, normal childhood with supportive parents that put me on a stable path to adulthood. She sadly, wasn’t so lucky, and we got to talking about how being the “rock” of the family felt so impossible to her. As mothers, we are so often portrayed as unflappable but in a flood of tiny tears, it’s actually really easy to be derailed, especially if those emotions bring up unresolved issues from our past. Life is complicated and if we didn’t grow up with the influences and support that we deserved, how can we possibly expect to know how to do it for others? What can we do if parenting brings up feelings that we’ve buried and hope to never resurrect? And how can we move past our own pasts to be great role models and emotional strongholds for our little people? Let’s find out. Our guest today is Stacey Rowland, a licensed professional counselor and the owner of Strive Counseling based in Phoenix, Arizona. Stacey is very well-versed in trauma healing and has extensive clinical training and experience in public mental health agencies, including residential and outpatient settings. She is passionate about helping individuals and families address their mental health concerns and works collaboratively with her patients to identify and meet their goals. Stacey uses a trauma-informed, strength-based approach to lead people through the process of making positive changes in their lives.From mental health and managing relationships to raising changemakers and advocating for support, freemom is a podcast dedicated to ensuring that every mom feels heard. You can find us on the gram at @freemomcast or on the web at www.freemomcast.com. You can also support the show and help fund production with a sweet little five-dollar donation right here. Thanks for listening!

As you probably know, this season is all about uncomfortable conversations and today’s topic might just take the cake. So let’s jump right in. Have you ever imagined what it would feel like to have an affair? Have you ever suspected that your spouse might be cheating? Well, you’re not alone. According to an article by the Institute for Family Studies approximately 20% of men and 13% of women reported that they’ve had sex with someone other than their spouse while married. But this data widely varies, most likely because people aren’t really comfortable with admitting it. Just Google around and you’ll see reports of more than half of married men engaging in extramarital sex during their marriage. That definitely doesn’t paint of rosy picture of marriage, but more importantly, it gives us an idea of just how hard relationships really are.Cheating has admittedly been an odd topic for me. Why bother snooping and sneaking around? Why not just break up? Everyone deserves to be happy right, so why can’t we just call a spade a spade and get on with our lives? Of course, we all know it’s much more complicated than that, especially with kids in the mix. So let’s talk about it. Why do people cheat? Is it ever possible to repair our relationship and find happiness together? Let’s find out. With me today is a guest that we’ve had on the show before and who wow’ed me at such a fever pitch that I had to have her back. Becca Stone is a psychotherapist based in Brooklyn and Philly who works specifically in emotion-focused couple’s therapy, an evidence-based approach to healing relationships grounded in the neuroscience of attachment. She is also a mother of two and works with her husband running their therapy practice.  Find our more about Becca right here and enjoy the show!From mental health and managing relationships to raising changemakers and advocating for support, freemom is a podcast dedicated to ensuring that every mom feels heard. You can find us on the gram at @freemomcast or on the web at www.freemomcast.com. You can also support the show and help fund production with a sweet little five-dollar donation right here. Thanks for listening!

As a mom, it can seem almost impossible to think about what would happen if you died. Even preparing for this episode, I started picturing my husband in his grief, searching aimlessly for passwords, digital photos, bank records, and everyday information that lives either online or in my head. Imagine a spouse who just lost their partner, spending hours, days, and months searching for everything. Rectifying bills, closing social media accounts, deleting subscriptions, changing “case of emergency” contacts. The list goes on and on.According to estimates, it takes 16 months to settle an estate on average. Combing through the digital components of a deceased person’s life can take a lot longer and be much more stressful. Physical assets are one thing but finding, accessing, dissolving, or preserving a person’s online life really is quite another. So that is what we are going to talk about today. Kate Hufnagel is a professional digital organizer, speaker, and educator who helps individuals and families do the important work that nobody likes to discuss. She is on a mission to normalize conversations about death planning, whether it be during family game night or out for brunch with friends. With a mindblowing background in big tech, Kate uses all of her know-how and experience to help people leave behind a well-organized digital estate.From mental health and managing relationships to raising changemakers and advocating for support, freemom is a podcast dedicated to ensuring that every mom feels heard. You can find us on the gram at @freemomcast or on the web at www.freemomcast.com. You can also support the show and help fund production with a sweet little five-dollar donation right here. Thanks for listening!

How many times have you said “YES” to something that you really just don’t want to do? Maybe it’s a work commitment or a social event, a school function for the kids, or your spouse’s softball game. Whatever it is, you’ve found yourself pinned against the fence and the “yes” drops out your mouth faster than you can catch it. Immediately you might feel some dread, knowing that the commitment is going to mean giving up something you actually do want to do. But god forbid you say no, the guilt would eat away at you. Am I right?I’m actually a professional at saying no. I can remember getting fully dressed for New Year’s Eve parties through most of my 20s, just to call friends and tell them I was bailing at the last minute. I’ve recently had to say no to houseguests for no reason other than my own lack of mental capacity, and this very weekend I sent my regrets to two kids birthday parties because, well, just no. It seems that my casual attitude towards committment is not the norm. In fact, too many women report saying yes out of guilt, shame, or a fear of retaliation. Women say yes to committees at school, party planning at work, and plenty of other unpaid jobs because they feel like they have to. So how do we stop the cycle and start prioritizing what actually makes us happy and fulfilled as women and mothers? Let’s find out.With me today is Molly Vasa Bertolucci, a licensed clinical social worker and the founder of Poppy Therapy based in Los Alamitos, California. Molly works exclusively with moms and she is passionate about helping women develop and build the skills and social supports they need to cope with life’s major transitions. She loves helping mothers feel empowered and her focus is how to make mental and emotional health a priority while caring for others. From mental health and managing relationships to raising changemakers and advocating for support, freemom is a podcast dedicated to ensuring that every mom feels heard. You can find us on the gram at @freemomcast or on the web at www.freemomcast.com. You can also support the show and help fund production with a sweet little five-dollar donation right here. Thanks for listening!

When you were a teenager, do you remember how it felt when the latest issue of your favorite magazine arrived in the mail? I love pouring over the pages, ogling all the fashion and beauty that was so far beyond my reach. Compared to now, there was a kind of innocence about media back then - we used to worship untouchable celebrities and models, which is so different to how we carry influencers and content creators in our pockets today. Advertising has become so personal and so clearly instinctual that we’re almost afraid to speak about it out loud. Hello Alexa. While I was looking up the history of women in advertising, I found a lot that made me chuckle. An exhibit at Duke University showcased ads with women being portrayed as essential workers while men went off to war in the 40s. That morphed into media showing women as the perfect housewife when the good ole boys came home. The explosion of feminism in the 70s made way for messages about freedom which quickly turned into women as sex symbols with the rise of the 1980s supermodel. What came from that is the idea that women can “do it all” - have a career, take care of the family, and be a stunning, sexy wife to boot. I feel like I can hear your eyes rolling.The advent of the internet and social media has most certainly revolutionized advertising, and where a trend may have once held up for a decade, things are now changing in what feels like the blink of an eye. As both women and moms of absorbent children, it’s worth at least trying to keep up, right? So let’s find out more about what we are in for. With me today is Katie Keating, Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer at Fancy, a New York City-based ad agency that works to empower brands to create meaningful, motivating connections with women. Katie co-founded Fancy in 2011 to change the way advertising works for women but also to help businesses communicate in a way that’s authentic to us as an audience.From mental health and managing relationships to raising changemakers and advocating for support, freemom is a podcast dedicated to ensuring that every mom feels heard. You can find us on the gram at @freemomcast or on the web at www.freemomcast.com. You can also support the show and help fund production with a sweet little five-dollar donation right here. Thanks for listening!

Here’s a question. How do you and your spouse divide your household tasks? If you’re a cisgender woman in a heterosexual relationship, you might already be groaning. Yes, for women, and especially mothers, it probably feels like the cards and the laundry are stacked against us, and you’re not wrong. According to a 2021 Pew Research study, nearly 60% of women say they do more household chores than their spouse, while just 6% say their spouse or partner does more. If you ask the husbands, 46% say the responsibilities are shared about equally, while 20% say they do more and 34% say their spouse does more. Isn’t that ironic? In another study, this time by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, women in the United States spend 37 percent more time on unpaid household and care work than men on an average day. Just google any term similar to “gender balance household chores” or “women unpaid labor” and you’ll find plenty of data points to show that women do twice as much of the work in the home that men do, even while working full time jobs. The big question for me is why and more importantly, what the heck can we do about it?Our guest today is Lauren Tetenbaum, a Westchester, New York-based advocate and therapist certified in perinatal mental health who specializes in life transitions affecting millennial women. With an approach grounded in empathy and emotional intelligence, Lauren counsels clients on romantic relationships, career choices, pregnancy and parenting, anxiety, and family dynamics. She is a devoted mom of two and passionate about building connections and giving back to her community.From mental health and managing relationships to raising changemakers and advocating for support, freemom is a podcast dedicated to ensuring that every mom feels heard. You can find us on the gram at @freemomcast or on the web at www.freemomcast.com. You can also support the show and help fund production with a sweet little five-dollar donation right here. Thanks for listening!

A glass of wine while making dinner, a joint after the kids have gone to bed, micro-dosing on mushrooms while folding laundry - these are just a few of the ways that moms are getting through the day. The stress of parenting has never been more real and for a lot of women, a little help to let go, keep calm, and make it to bedtime is becoming increasingly common. It’s certainly nothing new - the mommy martini of the 50s became so culturally iconic that you probably know someone with a depiction stuck to their refrigerator.In truth, moms absolutely need a break and the demands of work, parenting, and managing the household are more difficult and exhausting than they ever have been. But at what point does something that offers the occasional bit of breathing room start to become a real problem? Where do you draw the line between a release and an addiction? How can we strike a balance to ensure we’re taking care of ourselves and our families in a way that’s healthy and safe? And if we’re feeling like we are getting a bit too substance dependent, what can we do about it? That’s what we are going to talk about today. Back with us is one of my favorite guests. Jessica Vanderberg is the Co-Founder and Clinical Director of The Alliance Center, a Connecticut-based mental health center that’s solely focused on supporting mothers through life’s major transitions. As a full-spectrum doula, childbirth educator, social worker, and mom, Jessica has dedicated her life to the mental health of women as they navigate pregnancy, motherhood, and parenting.  From mental health and managing relationships to raising changemakers and advocating for support, freemom is a podcast dedicated to ensuring that every mom feels heard. You can find us on the gram at @freemomcast or on the web at www.freemomcast.com. You can also support the show and help fund production with a sweet little five-dollar donation right here. Thanks for listening!

If you are a working mother, calling the past few years “demanding” is the understatement of the century. Even in this “post-COVID” era, women leaders left their companies at the highest rates ever and the gap between women and men quitting senior roles became bigger than ever.  As a working mom today, you’ve probably had to stay home more than once because your child is sick and you have no one else to care for them. You’re of course not alone. 45 percent of mothers with children aged five and under left the workforce entirely during COVID because they had no one to look after their kids, compared to just 14 percent of fathers.But for many of us, our working lives form a major part of our identity. We want to be able to have meaningful careers and enjoy the satisfaction of participating in something bigger than ourselves. Work matters and but our families do too.  So that’s what we are going to talk about today. How can we embrace both work and motherhood, find the flexibility to excel at both jobs, and have confident conversations about what we need to set ourselves up for success? Let’s find out. With us today is Madeline Schwarz, a communication coach who helps quiet leaders speak up at work. What started as a career in window displays developed into a business about communication. As a window display designer, she learned how to get a message across in seconds. As a book publicist, she crafted stories that grabbed attention. Now she helps other people capture their audience's attention. Madeline has worked with founders to Fortune 500s and when she's not dreaming up ways to make communication more fun, you can find her visiting art museums and building cardboard forts with her son. Connect with her on Instagram or LinkedIn.From mental health and managing relationships to raising changemakers and advocating for support, freemom is a podcast dedicated to ensuring that every mom feels heard. You can find us on the gram at @freemomcast or on the web at www.freemomcast.com. You can also support the show and help fund production with a sweet little five-dollar donation right here. Thanks for listening!

Imagine landing a new job or a big promotion and finding out that the reason you got it is that you’re a woman. Then you find out that because you’re a woman, the company figured out that they could pay you less for the same job than they would pay a man to do the same work. Pretty infuriating right? It sounds insane, but it’s very real and it’s happening not only in the United States but all over the world. Known as the gender pay gap, women earn roughly 80 cents for every dollar that a man earns here in the U.S.  If you’re in management, that widens to 77 cents on the dollar. And here’s the kicker. If we keep moving at the rate we are now, it will take more than 250 years to close the gender pay gap globally. So how is this really affecting women at work, and what can we do about it? Let’s find out. With me today this Katica Roy, a gender economist who sees the gender wage gap not only as a social issue but an economic one with the opportunity to create significant growth. As a breadwinner mom who fought to be paid equitably twice (and won), she spearheaded original breadwinner mom research in 2018. Kah-ti-kuh is a widely-recognized voice in the realm of gender equity and has been featured by Forbes, Fortune, NBC, and Bloomberg, to name a few. She is the CEO of Pipeline Equity, a company providing comprehensive analytics that quantifies unconscious bias within an organization.From mental health and managing relationships to raising changemakers and advocating for support, freemom is a podcast dedicated to ensuring that every mom feels heard. You can find us on the gram at @freemomcast or on the web at www.freemomcast.com. You can also support the show and help fund production with a sweet little five-dollar donation right here. Thanks for listening!

There’s this reel that always pops up in Instagram feed, I’m not sure if you’ve seen it but people upload videos of their daughters along with a voiceover that says “to all the parents of stubborn little girls with fierce attitudes. Don’t put out that fire, she’s going to need it.”I chuckle to myself, picturing my own little dynamo - but at the same time, I feel conflicted. So much of me wants to raise children who are vocal activists, fierce advocates, and people who aren’t afraid to stand up for what’s right and call out what’s wrong. But then of course, there is the other side of me who wants to make sure my kids are respectful, considerate, and open to the plain and simple fact that sometimes we do just have to take “it”. We are living in a time when people and especially females are finally getting comfortable with using their voice and that thrills me. Women are showing up and taking over in politics, climate change is being propelled by a teenage girl. The way it’s always been isn’t good enough anymore and I for one am here for it. So that’s what we are going to talk about today. How can we as parents stoke the curiosity of our little people in a way that enables them to feel comfortable advocating for themselves and calling out injustice while still understanding the importance of respect and consideration for others? How can moms who maybe aren’t comfortable shouting from the rooftops or putting themselves in front of a microphone raise kids who are and who can? Let’s find out.With me today is Dr. Ashley Solomon, a licensed clinical psychologist, leadership coach, and founder of Galia Collaborative, a Cincinnati, Ohio-based mental health practice that works to provide women with the resources they need to overcome obstacles at home and at work to reclaim their power. From mental health and managing relationships to raising changemakers and advocating for support, freemom is a podcast dedicated to ensuring that every mom feels heard. You can find us on the gram at @freemomcast or on the web at www.freemomcast.com. You can also support the show and help fund production with a sweet little five-dollar donation right here. Thanks for listening!

I’m not going to beat around the bush. Today’s episode is about menopause. It seems a bit crazy to me, I mean menopause? That’s for older, or rather “mature” women, right? We are young, we have little people to look after, and honestly we have enough going on. Menopause? Nope. No way. Well, yes way. The average woman begins to experience perimenopausal symptoms between the ages of 40-44, and for some women, it’s even younger than that. For those of you who had babies a bit later in life, you could very well be clearing out those tampons and pads at the same time that you’re getting the kids out of diapers. It’s crazy to me that every woman experiences menopause and yet no one really talks about it. Yes, we know about the hot flashes but there has to be more to it than that. Funnily enough, if you type “average age” into Google, “of menopause” is the second most common response…. After “death”. Ugh. So what do we need to know? Why is menopause such a big secret? How can we prepare ourselves for this inevitable and honestly pretty uncomfortable change that’s in the not-so-distant future? Let’s find out. My guest today is Dr. Kate Zachau, Osteopathic Physician with Collaborative Natural Health Partners based in Connecticut. Dr. Kate works with patients to determine the root cause of their medical maladies in alignment with naturopathic and osteopathic philosophies. She specifically works with women as they move through menopause and her passion for integrative medicine is most notable in the modalities of mind-body medicine, nutrition, and osteopathic manipulation.  From mental health and managing relationships to raising changemakers and advocating for support, freemom is a podcast dedicated to ensuring that every mom feels heard. You can find us on the gram at @freemomcast or on the web at www.freemomcast.com. You can also support the show and help fund production with a sweet little five-dollar donation right here. Thanks for listening!From mental health and managing relationships to raising changemakers and advocating for support, freemom is a podcast dedicated to ensuring that every mom feels heard. You can find us on the gram at @freemomcast or on the web at www.freemomcast.com. You can also support the show and help fund production with a sweet little five-dollar donation right here. Thanks for listening!

Being a mother and raising kids while looking after a household is really tough right now. Throw in a full-time job, and life can seem pretty close to impossible some days. They say “the struggle is real” but so too is “the juggle” of being present as a mom and a working woman, especially when the cards are stacked against us in the corporate world. What exactly do I mean? According to a report by McKinsey & Company, women are promoted to manager at far lower rates than men, which creates a trickledown effect for formulating a gender-balanced foundation at the senior and executive levels. As of 2021, only a little more than 20% of women occupied C-suite roles, which is actually a 5% increase from 2016. Are we getting there? Maybe, but way too slowly. In fact, a recent study by The National Women’s Law Center showed that full-time working mothers were paid 74 cents for every dollar dolled out to dads. That’s $17,000 less just because of gender.So what’s the deal? Why are women getting overlooked when it comes to that promotion, raise, or next step in their careers? If the corporate behemoth is still so fixated on the white male employee, what can we do to take matters into our own hands? Let’s find out.My guest today is Anita Gatto, a mom of two and Co-Founder of The Board, a consultancy that connects C-Suite executives and entrepreneurs. Anita’s goal is to support women founders and leaders while creating a stronger, equity-driven, and gender-balanced business world.From mental health and managing relationships to raising changemakers and advocating for support, freemom is a podcast dedicated to ensuring that every mom feels heard. You can find us on the gram at @freemomcast or on the web at www.freemomcast.com. You can also support the show and help fund production with a sweet little five-dollar donation right here. Thanks for listening!From mental health and managing relationships to raising changemakers and advocating for support, freemom is a podcast dedicated to ensuring that every mom feels heard. You can find us on the gram at @freemomcast or on the web at www.freemomcast.com. You can also support the show and help fund production with a sweet little five-dollar donation right here. Thanks for listening!

I read an article recently that brought a lot of new mom insecurities flooding back to me and I’m honestly a bit ashamed to admit it. I was one of the last of my group of friends to have a baby and as helpful as their advice and wisdom were in so many aspects of pregnancy, I often found myself in the late-night company of Instagram, Amazon, and Google trying to decipher which gizmo, gadget, and “must-have” product I absolutely had to buy for the little human being that I felt completely underprepared to welcome into our family.Now I am a planner and a minimalist and I’m also a gosh darn marketing professional. And even with those to-the-core personality traits and a career of experience, I still found myself drenched in the anxiety of not having the right “stuff” for my bub. Luckily, I was able to fight off most of my impulses but it was so easy for me to flash back to those moments of the unknown, where having the best strollers, sleepers, and sound machines would somehow make me a better mom. So what is the deal with the consumer compulsion that grips us moms? Are we easy targets - hormonal, hapless, and armed with a financial treasure trove better known as the baby registry? How can we kick these insecurities and learn to trust our gut a bit more with regard to real needs versus wants or even worse - influencer projections? Let’s find out. With me today is Annie Midori Atherton, a writer and mom based in Seattle, WA. Her work focuses on parenting, culture, and any question that seeks to explain why we are the way we are. You’ve probably stumbled across her work in Romper, The Everymom, Business Insider or The Atlantic, and if you haven’t dialed into her stuff yet, you should. From mental health and managing relationships to raising changemakers and advocating for support, freemom is a podcast dedicated to ensuring that every mom feels heard. You can find us on the gram at @freemomcast or on the web at www.freemomcast.com. You can also support the show and help fund production with a sweet little five-dollar donation right here. Thanks for listening!From mental health and managing relationships to raising changemakers and advocating for support, freemom is a podcast dedicated to ensuring that every mom feels heard. You can find us on the gram at @freemomcast or on the web at www.freemomcast.com. You can also support the show and help fund production with a sweet little five-dollar donation right here. Thanks for listening!

I’m going to be really upfront here and tell you that I was never interested in politics until I became a mom. I’m embarrassed about it now but honestly, I found it all to be super boring. Mostly white, male candidates never spoke my language and it wasn’t until Barack Obama came on the scene that I even bothered to vote. Shameful, yes, but true. Now that I have little people, I have become a whole heck of a lot more invested in what happens in this country, especially when it comes to healthcare, environmental protection, and women’s and family issues. I started thinking about why so many political candidates are white males and why so many issues that are important to me as a mother - paid parental leave, universal preschool, safety in schools - never seem to make it “up the hill”. As I started looking into it, I found out that prior to this past election, 7 percent of representatives in Congress and only 5.3 percent of state legislators in the United States are mothers with children under the age of 18. What’s being celebrated in the media is Congress’s “unprecedented” diversity with 28% of the makeup being women and 23% identifying as non-white -  the most in history. Humph.So, are we doing something wrong here or are the increases in numbers actually encouraging? How can we help more women and mothers get into the political spectrum so we have a fighting chance at actually getting what we need for our families? Let’s find out.My guest today is Liuba Grechen Shirley, Founder and CEO of Vote Mama. Liuba ran for Congress in 2018 as a mom of two toddlers with no salary to pay for childcare. She quickly figured out why moms with young children don’t run for office and started the fight to change it. Liuba became the first woman in history to receive federal approval to spend Campaign Funds for childcare and she received the highest vote share of any Democrat to run against the incumbent in 25 years. After her campaign, she launched Vote Mama PAC, the nation’s first Political Action Committee dedicated to electing Democratic moms up and down the ballot. Since 2019, Vote Mama PAC has helped more than 400 pro-choice, Democratic moms run for office in 31 states. In 2020, Liuba launched the Vote Mama Foundation to break down the barriers that keep moms out of office and make it easier for moms to run and serve. Just recently, Liuba launched the Vote Mama Lobby, a political empowerment app that mobilizes fed-up moms to become an organized civic and voting bloc, volunteer for mama candidates, and lobby for truly family-friendly policies. It just so happens to be the virtual mom group of my dreams. From mental health and managing relationships to raising changemakers and advocating for support, freemom is a podcast dedicated to ensuring that every mom feels heard. You can find us on the gram at @freemomcast orFrom mental health and managing relationships to raising changemakers and advocating for support, freemom is a podcast dedicated to ensuring that every mom feels heard. You can find us on the gram at @freemomcast or on the web at www.freemomcast.com. You can also support the show and help fund production with a sweet little five-dollar donation right here. Thanks for listening!

According to a study published in the Journal of Family Psychology, a whopping 67% of couples say they are discontented with their marriage after they have a baby. Are you surprised? Probably not. After all, many women take on the lion’s share of both childcare and household chores, creating an imbalance in the home that stokes a serious resentment fire. As for the men, a loss of freedom and their position as the sole focus of their wife's attention is a huge change that can create frustration or detachment. One thing I read while preparing for this interview that intrigued me was the idea that couples get stuck in defensive positions of anger, sadness, and withdrawal - emotions that become cyclical especially as the stresses of parenting take their toll. Finding joy, laughter, and the commonalities that brought a couple together in the first place start to become a distant memory which creates further frustration for both partners. With such a huge change in household makeup, are there ways that we can tackle marriage after baby which will actually strengthen the bond between partners and create a more sound, loving relationship for years to come? Let’s find out. With me today is Becca Stone, a Brooklyn and Philadephia-based psychotherapist, coach, and trainer, who works specifically in emotion-focused couple’s therapy, an evidence-based approach to healing relationships grounded in the neuroscience of attachment. She is also a mother of two and works with her husband running their practice, so clearly, she knows what she is talking about. Check out her website or find her on TikTok @beccastone_therapist.From mental health and managing relationships to raising changemakers and advocating for support, freemom is a podcast dedicated to ensuring that every mom feels heard. You can find us on the gram at @freemomcast or on the web at www.freemomcast.com. You can also support the show and help fund production with a sweet little five-dollar donation right here. Thanks for listening!From mental health and managing relationships to raising changemakers and advocating for support, freemom is a podcast dedicated to ensuring that every mom feels heard. You can find us on the gram at @freemomcast or on the web at www.freemomcast.com. You can also support the show and help fund production with a sweet little five-dollar donation right here. Thanks for listening!

It’s no secret that corporate America kind of treats women like crap, with men earning roughly 16% more than us for doing the exact same jobs over the exact same time. If that doesn’t sound like a lot, tell your friends that they’d have to work 42 more days a year to even the score. No thank you. What’s even more shocking than the gender disparity in this country is what’s known as the “motherhood penalty” which studies show accounts for 80% of the gender pay gap. So it’s not just women who are being screwed, it’s actually mothers. To make that perfectly clear, we are earning less and getting passed up for promotions more simply because we have children. There is some pretty scary research to support all of this. A Harvard study found that mothers were recommended an 8% lower starting salary than non-mothers which is more than 8% lower than the recommended starting salary for fathers. Oddly, the trend is reversed for dads when compared to childless men. According to a recent report by the World Economic Forum, it will take another 130 years to close the gender pay gap globally. Let’s make this perfectly clear, we are talking about paying women, and disproportionately mothers, equal pay for equal work. That’s it. So how can we fast-track that trajectory and start to build a foundation that will actually benefit our daughters in ways that we are unlikely to see in our lifetime? Let’s find out. With me today is Lauren Smith Brody, founder of The Fifth Trimester an educational consulting platform that supports all working parents and caregivers to advance women’s leadership and build gender equity in the workforce. Her book, The Fifth Trimester, is a must-read for parents looking to survive and thrive in the tumble dryer early days of balancing career and motherhood.From mental health and managing relationships to raising changemakers and advocating for support, freemom is a podcast dedicated to ensuring that every mom feels heard. You can find us on the gram at @freemomcast or on the web at www.freemomcast.com. You can also support the show and help fund production with a sweet little five-dollar donation right here. Thanks for listening!From mental health and managing relationships to raising changemakers and advocating for support, freemom is a podcast dedicated to ensuring that every mom feels heard. You can find us on the gram at @freemomcast or on the web at www.freemomcast.com. You can also support the show and help fund production with a sweet little five-dollar donation right here. Thanks for listening!

One of the things I have found most amusing in my current stage of parenting is just how absorbent my little people are. My kids repeat nearly everything they hear, including the rogue f-bomb, a habit that my husband and I are now working a bit more diligently to break. Good, bad, happy, or sad, if we are talking about something, my children want to be a part of it. All the more so if their parrot-like chit-chat gets a reaction from mom and dad.Seeing how much young kids take cues from their parents got me wondering about other facets of their learning and developing brains. If kids say what we say, I wonder if they feel what we feel too. Parenting these past few years has been so hard, right? I started thinking, is our overall stress and worry causing our kids to stress and worry on a level that we don’t realize and they don’t understand? Is the weight of the world today going to have a long-term effect on our kids? Will the “wild and free” adolescence that we grew up with be lost on them, therefore creating a generation of anxious and fearful young people? Let’s find out.On the show with us is Dr. Anisha Patel-Dunn, Chief Medical Officer at LifeStance Health based in San Francisco California. Anisha has nearly 20 years of experience as a practicing psychiatrist and holds a Bachelor of Science in Biology from Emory University and a medical degree from The College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific at Western University of Health Sciences. As a mother of two, Anisha is passionate about youth mental health and she loves working with families who are looking for ways to communicate more effectively with each other. From mental health and managing relationships to raising changemakers and advocating for support, freemom is a podcast dedicated to ensuring that every mom feels heard. You can find us on the gram at @freemomcast or on the web at www.freemomcast.com. You can also support the show and help fund production with a sweet little five-dollar donation right here. Thanks for listening!From mental health and managing relationships to raising changemakers and advocating for support, freemom is a podcast dedicated to ensuring that every mom feels heard. You can find us on the gram at @freemomcast or on the web at www.freemomcast.com. You can also support the show and help fund production with a sweet little five-dollar donation right here. Thanks for listening!

The thing I love most about hosting this podcast is getting to speak with women all over the country who have been transformed by motherhood. Many of my guests are experts in their field fighting for women’s rights or professionals who have dedicated their lives to the betterment of our physical and mental health. Once in a while, I get to meet someone who does both - a person who has been radically changed by motherhood and who has used that experience to actually help other women lean into a role that they hadn’t been able to imagine before. In my experience, having kids has always been at odds with professional success. As much as we want to advance in our careers, society tells us to “step aside ladies, go raise the kids. Money is the man’s work now.” But the more I’m surrounded by inspiring women, the more I find myself in the company of people who, instead of letting their careers take a backseat, have actually used motherhood to catapult into a new way of working. The change is not without its challenges though, as the identity shift of being a mother while also balancing a professional life, navigating emotional changes in a partnership, and getting our heads around the world we’re currently grappling with can absolutely take its toll. So, as mothers, where are we in terms of life, career, and taking care of ourselves? How can we set ourselves up for change that actually feeds our needs and supports us as we age? That’s what we are going to talk about today.With me is Jessica Vanderberg, Co-Founder and Clinical Director of The Alliance Center, a Connecticut-based mental health center that’s solely focused on supporting mothers through life’s major transitions. As a full-spectrum doula, childbirth educator, social worker, and a mom, Jessica has dedicated her life to the mental health of women as they navigate pregnancy, motherhood, and parenting.From mental health and managing relationships to raising changemakers and advocating for support, freemom is a podcast dedicated to ensuring that every mom feels heard. You can find us on the gram at @freemomcast or on the web at www.freemomcast.com. You can also support the show and help fund production with a sweet little five-dollar donation right here. Thanks for listening!From mental health and managing relationships to raising changemakers and advocating for support, freemom is a podcast dedicated to ensuring that every mom feels heard. You can find us on the gram at @freemomcast or on the web at www.freemomcast.com. You can also support the show and help fund production with a sweet little five-dollar donation right here. Thanks for listening!

Here on the show, we talk a lot about how tough it is to raise kids, but if we’re being honest, sometimes it feels like the world is stacked against us from the moment we get that positive sign on a pregnancy test. Nearly all the women in my close circle of friends work full time and I would be lying if I told you that the thrill of their pregnancy news was met by an honest bit of fear. That seems normal right, who wouldn’t be worried about becoming a mother? But parenthood wasn’t the only thing eating them. It was actually how they would tell their employers the news and how a pregnancy, or several, would affect their careers. The Pregnancy Discrimination Act passed in 1978 technically protects a person’s workplace rights, which means that women can’t be discriminated against for being pregnant. But it happens every day. In fact, statistics show that in the last 10 years, more than 50,000 pregnancy discrimination claims were filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and Fair Employment Practices Agencies. That’s nearly 14 women per day, every day who come forward. And that’s just the start. Once a woman gets through the stress of “breaking the news” of a pregnancy to her powers that be, she then has to start a conversation about maternity leave. With no federal paid parental leave program available in the United States, these are very murky waters. Some companies have policies in place, some states even offer a level of job security, but rarely here in the U.S. can women access a program that allows them to feel financially secure enough to enjoy their first few months as a mother. So what gives? Let’s find out.My guest today is Amy Beacom, a mom of two and the Founder and CEO of the Center for Parental Leave Leadership, the first consultancy in the US to focus exclusively on parental leave. Amy is recognized as the premiere expert on the personal and professional interplay around parental leave for employers and employees. She helps women advocate for themselves in order to fully experience motherhood without the burdens of wobbly job security or financial stress.From mental health and managing relationships to raising changemakers and advocating for support, freemom is a podcast dedicated to ensuring that every mom feels heard. You can find us on the gram at @freemomcast or on the web at www.freemomcast.com. You can also support the show and help fund production with a sweet little five-dollar donation right here. Thanks for listening!From mental health and managing relationships to raising changemakers and advocating for support, freemom is a podcast dedicated to ensuring that every mom feels heard. You can find us on the gram at @freemomcast or on the web at www.freemomcast.com. You can also support the show and help fund production with a sweet little five-dollar donation right here. Thanks for listening!