What Fresh Hell: Laughing in the Face of Motherhood | Parenting Tips From Funny Moms

Do you hate feeling unable to help people in crisis, or do you worry about getting too involved and stepping on toes? There are ways to give help to people in need that are productive and considerate, and our listeners wrote in with some excellent examples.

Amy and Margaret discuss:

• How to avoid the "let me know if you need anything" trap
• The "comfort in, dump out" model of caretaking
• The perils of too many lasagnas

The best help you can give may be something that feels inconsequential to you but is actually a huge help to the people in need. Whatever your role ends up being during a crisis, accept it graciously, and don't expect a hero's fanfare for your efforts.

Links!

Anne Helen Petersen: A Shortcut for Caring for Others (and Being Cared for Yourself)

Susan Silk and Barry Goldman for the LA Times: "How not to say the wrong thing"

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How do we parent when we suddenly find ourselves doing it without our partner? Charles Bock, author of the memoir I WILL DO BETTER, discusses his experiences with fatherhood, grief, and finding strength through monumental challenges.

Charles Bock is the New York Times-bestselling author of the novels Beautiful Children and Alice & Oliver, and a creative writing professor at New York University.

Charles and Amy discuss:

• Charles's initial reluctance towards fatherhood and how his perspective changed over time
• The roles friends and family played in supporting him and his daughter through their first years without Charles's wife
• Advice for writers and individuals facing creative challenges

Here's where you can find Charles:

• www.charlesbock.net
• @bockity on FB
• Buy I WILL DO BETTER: https://bookshop.org/a/12099/9781419774423

We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website:

https://www.whatfreshhellpodcast.com/p/promo-codes/

What Fresh Hell is co-hosted by Margaret Ables and Amy Wilson.

mom friends, funny moms, parenting advice, parenting experts, parenting tips, mothers, families, parenting skills, parenting strategies, parenting styles, busy moms, self-help for moms, manage kid’s behavior, teenager, tween, child development, family activities, family fun, parent child relationship, decluttering, kid-friendly, invisible workload, single dad, single father, single mom, single mother, single parent, single parenthood, spousal loss, loss of husband, loss of wife, parenting with loss, grief, stages of grief, parenting with grief

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This month's Deep Dive series is all about family dynamics. Listen to the whole playlist on Spotify.

If you’re part of the “sandwich generation”– taking care of your parents and your children at the same time– you’ve got a lot of company. The demographic trends of starting our own families later, and increasing life expectancies, mean this double-caretaking will become a reality for a lot more of us. And it seems that this responsibility is falling more often on women: two-thirds of people doing the "double caretaking" are female.

In this episode, we discuss how caring for parents can be particularly fraught, whether you’re giving them daily insulin shots or just trying to make sense of their finances every April.

We also discuss the importance of prioritizing our own mental and physical health, even (especially) when there seems to be little time to do so.

Finally, we talk about operating from a place of maximum vulnerability. Realize that you really are doing more than any one person can handle. Get specific about the help you need, and be honest when you’re hitting your limits.

Here are links to some of the writing on the topic that we discuss in this episode:

• Dorothy A. Miller: The 'sandwich' generation: adult children of the aging
• Jessica Grose for NYT: ‘It’s Pretty Brutal’: The Sandwich Generation Pays a Price
• Katica Roy for Fast Company: I’m a breadwinner mom and this is why helping women in the sandwich generation is good for the U.S. economy
• Michelle Konstantinovsky for One Medical: The Sandwich Generation: Managing Stress While Caring For Others
• Alia E. Dastagir for the Chicago Sun Times: ‘Sandwich generation’ stress: Adults caring for aging parents face stress, frustration

We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website:

https://www.whatfreshhellpodcast.com/p/promo-codes/

mom friends, funny moms, parenting advice, parenting experts, parenting tips, mothers, families, parenting skills, parenting strategies, parenting styles, busy moms, self-help for moms, manage kid’s behavior, teenager, tween, child development, family activities, family fun, parent child relationship, decluttering, kid-friendly, invisible workload, default parent, sandwich generation, aging parents

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We’re rerunning some of our favorite holiday episodes to keep you company while you do all the things this season. Listen to all of our holiday episodes in this Spotify playlist.

Are you juggling “dress as your favorite reindeer” day at preschool with frantic texts from your sister-in-law asking what your spouse wants for Christmas? Are you feeling like hiding under the covers instead of hitting the office holiday party?

It’s the most everything time of the year, and women report the holidays as being far more stressful than men do.

In this episode we discuss how to manage the holiday stress, how to accept the non-cozy feelings that may arise, and why it’s okay to dial back if you’re really not feeling the holiday spirit.

Here are links to some of the writing on the topic that we discuss in this episode:

• Pooja Lakshmin on Instagram @womensmentalhealthdoc
• Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research: Holiday Stress
• Harvard Medical School: A holiday advisory for your emotions
• Cedars-Sinai Hospital: Depression and Anxiety Around the Holidays

We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website:

https://www.whatfreshhellpodcast.com/p/promo-codes/

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What Fresh Hell is co-hosted by Margaret Ables and Amy Wilson.

Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Santa, Elf on the Shelf, gift exchange, holiday, holiday shopping, holiday gifts, mom friends, funny moms, parenting advice, parenting experts, parenting tips, mothers, families, parenting skills, parenting strategies, parenting styles, busy moms, self-help for moms, manage kid’s behavior, teenager, toddler,

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The average adult makes 35,000 decisions a day. The average "default parent" makes a lot more than that. No wonder we suffer from decision fatigue. The more decisions we have to make, the more fatigue we develop, and the more difficult it can become to function.

So how can we combat the frustration, apathy, and resentment that result from having to make all the decisions in the family?

In this episode we discuss:

-how decision fatigue manifests—and how it differs from burnout

-the best time of day to make hard decisions

-why "going with the flow" is not actually a thing

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Here are links to some of the resources mentioned in the episode:

-Sara Berg for the American Medical Association: "What doctors wish patients knew about decision fatigue"

-Michelle Adelman for HowStuffWorks: "When's the Best Time of Day to Make a Decision?"

-Lauren Barth for The Bump: "Why the Decision-Fatigue Struggle Is (Still) Real for Parents"

-Frank Graff for PBS North Carolina: "How Many Decisions Do We Make In One Day?"

-Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco for The Washington Post: "For parents, everything feels like a high-stakes decision now. Here’s how to lower the anxiety."

-Ashley Stahl for Forbes: "How Burnout Affects Your Decision-Making Process—And How To Fix It"

-Eva M. Krockow for Psychology Today: "How Many Decisions Do We Make Each Day?"

We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our website:

https://www.whatfreshhellpodcast.com/p/promo-codes/

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