The Mamas are riding high this episode, with Karen celebrating a dear friend’s cancer-free scans. Just in case all this joy gets you sweaty, like Karen in her faucets-on 20s, Kalimba has a deodorant rec for you. In Listener questions, a bride wonders how much she owes her fiancé’s family when it comes to their demands and a friend wonders how to deal with a loose-lipped betrayal. The Mamas role play the art of awkward confrontation.

It’s the last episode of the year so gather ‘round Listener for some conversational nog. As the Mamas turn the page on 2022, they share what they’re sick of,  what they’re releasing, what they want to heal, and what they’re ready to embrace. Onwards, upwards, sideways into the great unknown.

This week The Mamas welcome Joy Campbell - podcaster, writer, life coach, and mama living an accelerated life with an incurable diagnosis - to discuss the silver linings of Cancer 2.0, how to manage your most constant companion (your mind), how to love on those on a medical journey the right way, and how to get Oprah, Augusten Burrows and Misty Tripoli on your support dream team.

This week, the Mamas turn their attention on their squalling, needy, tender, petty babies. Not their actual sons and daughters, mind you, but their dum dums within. Are our inner wounded babies a good hang? Not if you live with them! But maybe Listener could benefit from making a playdate for her baby with ours. No spanking. No time-outs. Lots of snacks. 

Kalimba went to see her therapist Ben Platt and he’s helping her deal with her anxiety. A tarot card reader reached out to Karen, who dared hope the universe wanted to advise her on how best to parent her teenager. Then things got weird. Pour yourself a glass of potato salad and come sit a while with the Mamas.

Link to Ben Platt's Grow As We Go

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDeNQNtW1f8

Kids are back to school, and Mamas are feeling loopy. A chance encounter with a college alum takes them back to their younger days when Karen was in the dirtbag dorm and Kalimba was keeping it cute with the James Avery girls. Switching gears, sloppily!, the Mamas have a few things to say about the fragile male ego. It is omnipresent and malignant when unchecked. Permission granted to tell an 8-year-old boy or a 50-year-old husband to get over themselves.

Kalimba has met her match, and his name is Mickey Mouse. Hers is a harrowing tale of surviving the happiest place on Earth. From one uncomfortable truth (Disneyland is trash) to another (teenagers are liars), the Mamas have their work cut out for them. Goodbye cruel summer, we made the most of you.

The Mamas are in bed together this week, coming straight to you from Kamp Kalimba. Think girlfriends can't handle a frank conversation about money and Karen's dropped jaw in the land of Teslas, nannies, and lifeguards at backyard pool parties? Wrong! Kalimba has an important new parenting philosophy that involves Cokes for dessert. Also, our very unsober take on the latest and dumbest in reality TV.