Faark The Shoulds (& Alchemising Education)

Living in alignment sounds lovely until life gets involved.

It’s easy enough to talk about following your joy, trusting the flow and choosing what feels right when the choices are spacious. It gets more interesting when there’s a mortgage, four kids, a job somebody has to show up for, competing needs inside a family, grief that arrives without asking, and mornings where nobody is particularly enlightened.

In Episode 69 of Faark the Shoulds, QuantiMama Jodi and QuantiPapa McGill pull apart the polished version of alignment — the one that can start to sound suspiciously like peace, ease and feeling good all the time — and ask whether the real thing might be much broader than that.

Because sometimes alignment looks like doing work you wouldn’t necessarily choose, while still knowing you’re free to leave. Sometimes it’s recognising that what serves the family as a whole won’t always be the thing that serves you most in that exact moment. Sometimes it’s letting a child have the full force of their emotions without rushing in to make them smaller, neater or easier for everyone else.

And sometimes it looks nothing like happiness at all.

A hard week brings that idea into sharper focus for Jodi, as she watches someone she loves move through wave after wave of grief without fighting the fact that it hurts. It changes the question. Maybe alignment isn’t about arranging life so discomfort disappears. Maybe it’s about how honestly we’re able to meet what’s actually here.

That opens up a bigger conversation about choice, resentment, relationships that quietly become scorecards, the freedom of having an exit clause, and the difference between supporting somebody and trying to rescue them from their own experience.

Jodi wonders whether coherence might be a better word. McGill leans towards flow. Either way, neither of them is interested in a version of alignment with what Jodi calls “slight Valium energy.”

They’re interested in the whole kaleidoscope.

The joy and the grief. The freedom and the responsibility. The surf that resets your nervous system and the job you still have to turn up for afterwards. The moments where you nail it, and the ones where you get knocked sideways and have another go.

For anyone who has ever wondered why “follow your joy” somehow made them feel like they were failing at being spiritual, this one widens the frame.

Alignment might not mean feeling good.

It might mean being fully in the life you’re actually living.

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QuantiMama supports families with empowered birth education, postpartum preparation and homeschooling support — practical tools, lived experience and honest guidance to help you make choices that fit your family.

Explore free resources, courses and support at quantimama.com

Preparing for birth — wherever you are
High Vibe Birth is our self-paced online birth preparation course, available worldwide. Want more personalised support? Birth Immersions are available online or in person, with practical birth preparation, partner support, nervous-system tools and space to explore your choices.
→ quantimama.com/highvibebirth

Planning for postpartum
Optimal Birth Recovery provides professional placenta encapsulation across Geelong, the Bellarine, Melbourne and selected regional areas. Not local? Explore QuantiMama’s free postpartum resources for pregnancy, birth recovery and early postpartum preparation.
→ quantimama.com/optimal-birth-recovery

Questioning school or considering homeschooling?
Take The Leap supports families anywhere in the world to explore homeschooling with clarity, confidence and practical next steps — without needing to have it all figured out first.
→ quantimama.com/take-the-leap

Follow @quantimama on Instagram, YouTube & Facebook — and come say “howdy”.

Adults talk about kids constantly. What’s best for them. What’s damaging them. What they need to learn, who they need to become, and which path will give them the best shot at a good life.

But how often do we actually ask them?

In Episode 68 of Alchemising Education, Faark the Shoulds’ sister podcast, QuantiMama Jodi and QuantiMama Kerri hand the mic to three freshly minted adults — Charlie, Annabelle and Tom — and ask them to look back at their own education while it’s still close enough to remember clearly.

Between them, they’ve experienced school, homeschool, and a fair bit of both. And their answers don’t fall neatly into either camp.

Charlie loved school, but struggled with being forced to learn at everybody else’s pace. Annabelle is grateful for the opportunities school gave her, while questioning why university was presented as the obvious next step. And Tom’s strongest reflection on homeschooling has little to do with curriculum at all: it’s that having more time at home strengthened his relationship with his parents.

What emerges isn’t a verdict on school or homeschooling. It’s a much more interesting question: what changes when young people are treated as individuals and given a genuine say in how they learn?

They talk about pace, pressure, sleep, homework, social connection, extracurriculars, family time, finding what lights you up — and why an education that works beautifully for one child may be completely wrong for another.

For parents wondering whether their child is genuinely thriving, merely coping, or quietly asking for something different, this is a conversation worth hearing.

Three young adults. Three very different educational experiences. And one message that keeps surfacing without anyone needing to force it:

Maybe we should spend a little less time discussing kids — and a little more time consulting them.

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Support the show

Loved this? Come deeper.

QuantiMama supports families with empowered birth education, postpartum preparation and homeschooling support — practical tools, lived experience and honest guidance to help you make choices that fit your family.

Explore free resources, courses and support at quantimama.com

Preparing for birth — wherever you are
High Vibe Birth is our self-paced online birth preparation course, available worldwide. Want more personalised support? Birth Immersions are available online or in person, with practical birth preparation, partner support, nervous-system tools and space to explore your choices.
→ quantimama.com/highvibebirth

Planning for postpartum
Optimal Birth Recovery provides professional placenta encapsulation across Geelong, the Bellarine, Melbourne and selected regional areas. Not local? Explore QuantiMama’s free postpartum resources for pregnancy, birth recovery and early postpartum preparation.
→ quantimama.com/optimal-birth-recovery

Questioning school or considering homeschooling?
Take The Leap supports families anywhere in the world to explore homeschooling with clarity, confidence and practical next steps — without needing to have it all figured out first.
→ quantimama.com/take-the-leap

Follow @quantimama on Instagram, YouTube & Facebook — and come say “howdy”.

Unapologetic Mothers with Riona Seehusen, Bellagreen Organic Farm.
Somewhere along the way, mothers were taught to be softer, quieter, nicer, more accommodating, and less animal.

Which is odd, really, because have you seen a mama bear, particularly when her cub is threatened?

In Episode 67 of Faark The Shoulds, QuantiMama Jodi continues the conversation with Riona Seehusen from Bellagreen Organic Farm for Part 2 of “Unapologetic Mothers”. This one moves deeper into maternal instinct, family culture, raising capable children, community, birth, postnatal depression, and the wild little truth that mothers are allowed to protect what matters without asking permission first.

Riona is a mother of five and an organic and biodynamic farmer on the Bellarine Peninsula. Through Bellagreen Organic Farm, she brings mothers and children together in a way that is practical, earthy, and quietly radical: kids free range, mothers get their hands dirty, and everyone remembers community does not have to be complicated to be meaningful.

This episode is full of those excellent, inconvenient reminders that family life is not meant to run like a productivity spreadsheet. Connection is not linear. Children are more capable than we often let them be. Boundaries can make childhood feel safer, not smaller. And mothers do not need to rescue their children from every scrape, sadness, discomfort, or tiny public inconvenience.

Inside this episode:

•  why family culture becomes the water children swim in 
•  how boundaries create safety, not deprivation 
•  why children need chances to become capable 
•  how mothers can stop rescuing everyone from discomfort 
•  why postnatal depression is not a personal failing 
•  how birth stories shape what women expect from themselves 
•  why maternal instinct has been pushed down, but not erased 

Jodi and Riona also wander into Women Who Run With the Wolves, animal mothers, joyful birth resources, and the kind of mother fire that says, very politely or not, “No. This matters.”

This is for the mother who has been told her instinct is too much.

Maybe it is not too much.

Maybe it is exactly the thing your family needs.

Resources, as promised:

•  Bellagreen Organic Farm — local to the Bellarine? Experience the best local, seasonal produce from Riona and the team at Bellagreen Organic Farm: bellagreenorganicfarm.com.au 
•  Women Who Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estés — discussed as a rich resource for women, instinct, initiation, mythology, and the wild self. 
•  Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth by Ina May Gaskin — mentioned as a go-to birth resource full of varied, empowered birth stories. 
•  The Big Stretch — an Australian birth film/resource by Jenny Blyth, mentioned by Riona as a joyful birth resource she watched during pregnancy. 
•  Video compilations of mothers in the wild — suggested as a reminder of maternal instinct, fierceness, and protective power.

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Support the show

Loved this? Come deeper.

QuantiMama supports families with empowered birth education, postpartum preparation and homeschooling support — practical tools, lived experience and honest guidance to help you make choices that fit your family.

Explore free resources, courses and support at quantimama.com

Preparing for birth — wherever you are
High Vibe Birth is our self-paced online birth preparation course, available worldwide. Want more personalised support? Birth Immersions are available online or in person, with practical birth preparation, partner support, nervous-system tools and space to explore your choices.
→ quantimama.com/highvibebirth

Planning for postpartum
Optimal Birth Recovery provides professional placenta encapsulation across Geelong, the Bellarine, Melbourne and selected regional areas. Not local? Explore QuantiMama’s free postpartum resources for pregnancy, birth recovery and early postpartum preparation.
→ quantimama.com/optimal-birth-recovery

Questioning school or considering homeschooling?
Take The Leap supports families anywhere in the world to explore homeschooling with clarity, confidence and practical next steps — without needing to have it all figured out first.
→ quantimama.com/take-the-leap

Follow @quantimama on Instagram, YouTube & Facebook — and come say “howdy”.

Unapologetic Mothers with Riona Seehusen, Bellagreen Organic Farm
There is a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from mothering while constantly checking whether everyone else is comfortable with it.

Is the baby too loud?
 Are the kids too wild?
 Are you being too much?
 Too soft? Too firm? Too visible? Too honest? Too bloody inconvenient?

In Episode 66 of Faark The Shoulds, QuantiMama Jodi is joined by Riona Seehusen from Bellagreen Organic Farm for a gloriously honest conversation about unapologetic motherhood, postnatal isolation, community, judgement, birth stories, and the tiny-but-massive question every mother eventually needs to ask:

“Do I actually have to?”

Riona is a mother of five, organic and biodynamic farmer on the Bellarine Peninsula, and a magnificent should-farker. Together, she and Jodi talk about the way modern motherhood can become deeply extractive: people coming to take from the mother, judge the mother, advise the mother, and somehow still expect the mother to make the cup of tea. Wild. Truly.

This episode is for the mum who has found herself apologising for her child existing loudly in public. The one who feels watched in the supermarket. The one who is tired of earning imaginary medals for coping quietly. The one who suspects there might be another way to mother without shrinking herself to make everyone else comfortable.

Inside this episode:

•  why mothers apologise for children who are simply being children 
•  how postnatal culture can become extractive instead of supportive 
•  why women often bond over birth trauma, but hide beautiful birth stories 
•  how judgement pulls mothers away from their own instincts 
•  why “says who?” is a wildly useful parenting question 
•  how community can become an access point back to yourself 

This is not a neat little parenting tips episode.

It is a conversation about instinct, responsibility, power, pause, and the kind of mothering that stops outsourcing its authority to the imaginary judge in the room.

Press play if you are ready to stop apologising for taking up space as a mother.

Send us Fan Mail

Support the show

Loved this? Come deeper.

QuantiMama supports families with empowered birth education, postpartum preparation and homeschooling support — practical tools, lived experience and honest guidance to help you make choices that fit your family.

Explore free resources, courses and support at quantimama.com

Preparing for birth — wherever you are
High Vibe Birth is our self-paced online birth preparation course, available worldwide. Want more personalised support? Birth Immersions are available online or in person, with practical birth preparation, partner support, nervous-system tools and space to explore your choices.
→ quantimama.com/highvibebirth

Planning for postpartum
Optimal Birth Recovery provides professional placenta encapsulation across Geelong, the Bellarine, Melbourne and selected regional areas. Not local? Explore QuantiMama’s free postpartum resources for pregnancy, birth recovery and early postpartum preparation.
→ quantimama.com/optimal-birth-recovery

Questioning school or considering homeschooling?
Take The Leap supports families anywhere in the world to explore homeschooling with clarity, confidence and practical next steps — without needing to have it all figured out first.
→ quantimama.com/take-the-leap

Follow @quantimama on Instagram, YouTube & Facebook — and come say “howdy”.

Prepare for your baby's arrival with this guided planned caesarean birth meditation and C-section rehearsal from QuantiMama's Jodi, creator of High Vibe Birth.

Designed for expectant mums preparing for a planned caesarean, this gentle visualisation helps you mentally rehearse the experience of your baby's birth before the day arrives - from leaving home and arriving at hospital, to meeting your care team, seeing your baby for the first time and settling into connection, recovery and rest.

Rather than experiencing caesarean birth only as a clinical or surgical event, this meditation invites you to experience it as something deeply personal, intentional and connected.

You are guided to visualise yourself arriving at hospital feeling prepared, recognising the people around you as your team, connecting with your baby, trusting your body and allowing yourself to feel calm, supported and present as your baby's birth unfolds.

Throughout the rehearsal, you'll be invited to practise:

• connecting with your baby before birth
• breathing into calm, trust and anticipation
• visualising your arrival at hospital
• feeling welcomed and supported by your birth and medical team
• recognising the extraordinary work your body has already done growing your baby
• remaining present as your baby is born
• imagining the first moment you see and meet your baby
• noticing the reassuring sounds and activity around you
• allowing your body to move into recovery and restoration
• visualising closeness, touch, skin-to-skin and bonding with your baby
• settling into rest, stillness and connection after birth

The meditation gently reframes a planned caesarean as the birth of your baby - an experience in which you can still feel involved, connected, supported and deeply present.

Use this rehearsal regularly in the lead-up to your baby's birth. You may listen quietly as a guided pregnancy meditation or use it as an intentional visualisation practice to make the environment, emotions and transitions of your planned caesarean feel more familiar.

The aim is not to control exactly how your birth unfolds. It is to give your mind and nervous system a familiar pathway to return to - one grounded in breath, trust, connection and confidence.

This free meditation forms part of the QuantiMama approach to empowered birth preparation and complements the deeper practices taught through High Vibe Birth and QuantiMama Birth Immersions.

About Jodi and QuantiMama

Jodi is the founder of QuantiMama, a birth educator, former Advanced Life Support paramedic and clinical instructor, mother of four and creator of High Vibe Birth.

QuantiMama supports families to prepare for birth with practical tools, nervous-system awareness, informed choice and a deep respect for each family's individual birth pathway.

Whether you are preparing for vaginal birth, caesarean birth, hospital birth or another supported pathway, the goal is not to prescribe one "right" birth. It is to help you feel more informed, connected and capable of meeting your baby's birth in a way that feels right for you.

Explore more QuantiMama birth resources and support through the links in the show notes.

Important: This meditation is a supportive pregnancy and birth-preparation resource. It is not medical advice and does not promise or guarantee a particular birth experience or recovery outcome.

Send us Fan Mail

Support the show

Loved this? Come deeper.

QuantiMama supports families with empowered birth education, postpartum preparation and homeschooling support — practical tools, lived experience and honest guidance to help you make choices that fit your family.

Explore free resources, courses and support at quantimama.com

Preparing for birth — wherever you are
High Vibe Birth is our self-paced online birth preparation course, available worldwide. Want more personalised support? Birth Immersions are available online or in person, with practical birth preparation, partner support, nervous-system tools and space to explore your choices.
→ quantimama.com/highvibebirth

Planning for postpartum
Optimal Birth Recovery provides professional placenta encapsulation across Geelong, the Bellarine, Melbourne and selected regional areas. Not local? Explore QuantiMama’s free postpartum resources for pregnancy, birth recovery and early postpartum preparation.
→ quantimama.com/optimal-birth-recovery

Questioning school or considering homeschooling?
Take The Leap supports families anywhere in the world to explore homeschooling with clarity, confidence and practical next steps — without needing to have it all figured out first.
→ quantimama.com/take-the-leap

Follow @quantimama on Instagram, YouTube & Facebook — and come say “howdy”.

Prepare your mind and body for birth with this guided positive birth meditation and natural labour rehearsal from QuantiMama's Jodi, creator of High Vibe Birth.

This is more than a relaxation meditation. It is an embodied birth visualisation designed to help you mentally and physically rehearse labour before the day arrives - building familiarity with the sensations, breath, movement, partner support and inner steadiness you may draw on during birth.

Through guided breathing, body awareness and visualisation, you'll rehearse moving through waves of labour, relaxing and surrendering between surges, connecting with your baby, changing positions instinctively and receiving loving support from your partner or beloved.

The rehearsal takes you from the early sensations of labour through increasing intensity, downward pressure, birth and finally the moment of meeting and holding your baby.

You'll be guided to practise:

• slowing and lengthening your breath through labour surges
• relaxing, releasing and conserving energy between waves
• moving instinctively and finding comfortable labour positions
• connecting with your baby throughout labour
• receiving affirmations, light-touch massage and physical support from your birth partner
• visualising your body opening and your baby moving down
• trusting your own inner knowing as birth unfolds
• imagining the powerful transition into meeting your baby

At the heart of the meditation is the intention:

Your baby is born in a way that is for your highest good and your baby's highest good.

Use this birth rehearsal regularly during pregnancy, either on your own or together with your partner. You may listen quietly as a guided meditation, or make it a physical rehearsal by moving, breathing and practising the positions and partner-support techniques as they are described.

Repeated birth rehearsal can help make the experience feel less unfamiliar - not by controlling how birth unfolds, but by giving your nervous system a practised reference point for meeting labour with greater calm, confidence and connection.

This free meditation is part of the QuantiMama approach to empowered birth preparation and complements the deeper practices taught through High Vibe Birth and QuantiMama Birth Immersions.

About Jodi and QuantiMama

Jodi is the founder of QuantiMama, a birth educator, former Advanced Life Support paramedic and clinical instructor, mother of four and creator of High Vibe Birth. QuantiMama supports families to prepare for birth with practical tools, embodied confidence, informed choice and a deep trust in their own capacity to make decisions that fit their family.

Explore more QuantiMama birth resources and support via the links in the show notes.

Important: This meditation is a supportive birth-preparation and wellbeing resource. It is not medical advice and does not promise or guarantee a particular birth outcome.

Send us Fan Mail

Support the show

Loved this? Come deeper.

QuantiMama supports families with empowered birth education, postpartum preparation and homeschooling support — practical tools, lived experience and honest guidance to help you make choices that fit your family.

Explore free resources, courses and support at quantimama.com

Preparing for birth — wherever you are
High Vibe Birth is our self-paced online birth preparation course, available worldwide. Want more personalised support? Birth Immersions are available online or in person, with practical birth preparation, partner support, nervous-system tools and space to explore your choices.
→ quantimama.com/highvibebirth

Planning for postpartum
Optimal Birth Recovery provides professional placenta encapsulation across Geelong, the Bellarine, Melbourne and selected regional areas. Not local? Explore QuantiMama’s free postpartum resources for pregnancy, birth recovery and early postpartum preparation.
→ quantimama.com/optimal-birth-recovery

Questioning school or considering homeschooling?
Take The Leap supports families anywhere in the world to explore homeschooling with clarity, confidence and practical next steps — without needing to have it all figured out first.
→ quantimama.com/take-the-leap

Follow @quantimama on Instagram, YouTube & Facebook — and come say “howdy”.

Picture, if you will: your kid is mid-meltdown over something that feels wildly out of proportion, and instead of saying a word, you're staring into their left eye like a weirdo, silently repeating "They're holding the 'talking stick' right now."

Ridiculous? Yep, kinda. Effective? Also Yes, according to this episode.

In Episode 65 of Alchemising Education, Faark the Shoulds' sister podcast, QuantiMama Jodi and QuantiMama Kerri open up the question every parent circles back to eventually: when do you push a kid forward, and when do you get out of the way and let them work it out themselves?

This isn't a lecture on letting kids run feral while you observe serenely from a safe distance. It's the more useful version - knowing when to flex the parent muscle and when to sit on your hands, and noticing how often that first instinct is actually just an old, low-vibe habit wearing a helpful disguise.

Surrender isn't the same as absence. It's giving up the need to have all the answers, so kids get to build the muscle of working things out themselves while they're still young enough for the stakes to be small.

Jodi and Kerri talk through what that actually looks like in practice:

●      handing an invisible talking stick to whoever's actually meant to be talking

●      looking into their left eye; that's the receiving, non-confrontational one

●      throwing the clock out the window the second the urge to fix kicks in

●      letting a contrast experience do the teaching instead of another lecture

●      checking whether an activity is still a Yes, not just a standing commitment

●      offering yourself up as the fall guy so they can exit gracefully, no cred lost

For the parent who's bitten their tongue through this exact conversation more times than they'd like to admit, and for anyone whose household calendar hasn't asked a single kid whether they're actually enjoying any of it.

Next time the urge to jump in shows up, try the invisible 'talking stick' first. See how long the talking stick stays with them before you need it back.

Send us Fan Mail

Support the show

Loved this? Come deeper.

QuantiMama supports families with empowered birth education, postpartum preparation and homeschooling support — practical tools, lived experience and honest guidance to help you make choices that fit your family.

Explore free resources, courses and support at quantimama.com

Preparing for birth — wherever you are
High Vibe Birth is our self-paced online birth preparation course, available worldwide. Want more personalised support? Birth Immersions are available online or in person, with practical birth preparation, partner support, nervous-system tools and space to explore your choices.
→ quantimama.com/highvibebirth

Planning for postpartum
Optimal Birth Recovery provides professional placenta encapsulation across Geelong, the Bellarine, Melbourne and selected regional areas. Not local? Explore QuantiMama’s free postpartum resources for pregnancy, birth recovery and early postpartum preparation.
→ quantimama.com/optimal-birth-recovery

Questioning school or considering homeschooling?
Take The Leap supports families anywhere in the world to explore homeschooling with clarity, confidence and practical next steps — without needing to have it all figured out first.
→ quantimama.com/take-the-leap

Follow @quantimama on Instagram, YouTube & Facebook — and come say “howdy”.

Some jokes don't stay jokes. Four years ago, calling a podcast Faark the Shoulds was mostly just funny - a release valve for how much of adulthood runs on quiet obligation. It's still funny. It also became the actual way this family makes decisions, including the ones that matter.

That's what Episode 64 sits with. QuantiMama Jodi and QuantiPapa McGill mark four years of farking the shoulds by asking the harder question underneath the joke: what does taking "is this a should?" seriously, every time, actually do to a person and a family?

The truth of it is that it doesn't make you more certain. It makes you more honest.

There's something almost too simple at the centre of it: you can feel a "yes" in your body before your mind builds a case for it, and a "no" the same way, usually earlier than you'd like to admit. Most indecision is just talking yourself out of a feeling you already had, because someone else's expectations had already decided the acceptable answer.

Once you start trusting that in yourself, it gets harder to keep overriding it in your children. A hug forced on a child because a relative expects one. A swear word swallowed because nice families don't say that. Neither is really about hugs or language. Both are small moments where a child's honest signal gets quietly corrected for someone else's comfort - and small moments are exactly where trust in your own body gets built, or worn away.

It's why, when their eldest was working out whether a trip overseas was something he wanted or something he felt obliged to do, Jodi and McGill didn't make the call for him. They asked the same question they ask themselves, then got out of the way. He came back with more questions than answers - which turns out to be exactly what taking a should seriously looks like.

For the parent trying to raise kids who trust their own no - and, if they're honest with themselves, for anyone who's spent years being polite instead of honest, and is curious what the other option actually feels like.

Four years on, it's still faintly ridiculous to call a swear word a philosophy. Listen to why it's the one that's actually endured.

Send us Fan Mail

Support the show

Loved this? Come deeper.

QuantiMama supports families with empowered birth education, postpartum preparation and homeschooling support — practical tools, lived experience and honest guidance to help you make choices that fit your family.

Explore free resources, courses and support at quantimama.com

Preparing for birth — wherever you are
High Vibe Birth is our self-paced online birth preparation course, available worldwide. Want more personalised support? Birth Immersions are available online or in person, with practical birth preparation, partner support, nervous-system tools and space to explore your choices.
→ quantimama.com/highvibebirth

Planning for postpartum
Optimal Birth Recovery provides professional placenta encapsulation across Geelong, the Bellarine, Melbourne and selected regional areas. Not local? Explore QuantiMama’s free postpartum resources for pregnancy, birth recovery and early postpartum preparation.
→ quantimama.com/optimal-birth-recovery

Questioning school or considering homeschooling?
Take The Leap supports families anywhere in the world to explore homeschooling with clarity, confidence and practical next steps — without needing to have it all figured out first.
→ quantimama.com/take-the-leap

Follow @quantimama on Instagram, YouTube & Facebook — and come say “howdy”.

What happens when a man actually knows his job in the birth space?

Not “just be supportive”.
Not “rub her back and stay out of trouble”.
Not standing in the corner like an awkward extra waiting for someone to hand him a script.

In this bonus crossover episode of Faark the Shoulds, QuantiMama Jodi joins Nathan Francis from the Breaking Free podcast for a conversation that roams across masculinity, addiction, school, tech, inner knowing, and the absolute farce of how disconnected people have become from their own truth. But one of the most potent threads running through it is this: birth can forge a man too. Not by turning him into the hero of the room, but by calling him into presence, protection, steadiness, and trust. 

Jodi speaks so beautifully here about what happens when a partner isn’t sidelined by the system or numbed out by modern life, but actually initiated into his role. The silverback. The guardian of the perimeter. The one who doesn’t need to take over, but absolutely knows when to step in, hold the field, and back his woman with his whole chest. It’s not performative masculinity. It’s not chest-beating nonsense. It’s devotion. It’s discernment. It’s the kind of masculine presence that makes a woman feel met, not managed. 

And because this is QuantiMama, the conversation doesn’t stay neatly in the birth room. It widens. Into children climbing trees. Into families being trained out of their own instincts. Into the way school, tech, labels, and convenience keep pulling people further away from the body’s knowing and deeper into compliance, noise, and second-guessing. Again and again, this ep comes back to something beautifully simple: your body already knows. The problem is not the knowing. It’s the interference. 

There’s also a really lovely undercurrent in this one about love. Not the showy, polished kind. The real thing. The kind that forges itself through birth, truth, risk, partnership, and being willing to live in a way that actually feels like yours. The kind that asks better questions. The kind that stops waiting for permission. 

This one is for the men who know there has to be more than numbness, porn, performance, and playing small.
 For the women who are done dragging everyone to consciousness.
 And for the families who can feel, in their bones, that the default path is not it.

Press play for a conversation about healthy masculinity, empowered birth, trusting your inner compass, and remembering that the Shoulds are usually where things start to turn to custard. There is a better, truer way and we'll all be richer for it.

Follow Nathan Francis and his conversations and work for evolved, in-tune men at:
https://www.youtube.com/@nathanfrancis__
https://www.instagram.com/nathanfrancis__/

Send us Fan Mail

Support the show

Loved this? Come deeper.

QuantiMama supports families with empowered birth education, postpartum preparation and homeschooling support — practical tools, lived experience and honest guidance to help you make choices that fit your family.

Explore free resources, courses and support at quantimama.com

Preparing for birth — wherever you are
High Vibe Birth is our self-paced online birth preparation course, available worldwide. Want more personalised support? Birth Immersions are available online or in person, with practical birth preparation, partner support, nervous-system tools and space to explore your choices.
→ quantimama.com/highvibebirth

Planning for postpartum
Optimal Birth Recovery provides professional placenta encapsulation across Geelong, the Bellarine, Melbourne and selected regional areas. Not local? Explore QuantiMama’s free postpartum resources for pregnancy, birth recovery and early postpartum preparation.
→ quantimama.com/optimal-birth-recovery

Questioning school or considering homeschooling?
Take The Leap supports families anywhere in the world to explore homeschooling with clarity, confidence and practical next steps — without needing to have it all figured out first.
→ quantimama.com/take-the-leap

Follow @quantimama on Instagram, YouTube & Facebook — and come say “howdy”.

"Mum, stop pushing me. I'm not ready."

Dr. Maxine Therese's son said this at the school gate when he was small. She was not dragging him. She was doing what most of us do - quietly, persistently, anxiously moving him toward the door. He named it before she could. And she had to sit with what it meant that he felt it even when she wouldn't admit it.
In Episodes 62 and 63 of Alchemising Education - the little sister pod to Faark the Shoulds - QuantiMama Jodi and QuantiMama Kerri sit down with Dr. Maxine Therese, founder of Childosophy and author of A Push for a Child Philosophy, on what children are actually communicating when they resist, shut down, or fall apart at the gate.

Not behaviour management. The much more useful version: the one that starts from the premise that children come in whole - nothing missing, nothing broken - and that every difficult thing they do is a foundational need speaking. Not defiance. Information.

Because if a child doesn't come in missing a kidney, they don't come in missing a nervous system either. They come in whole, with 7 foundational needs all active from birth, all visible in their behaviour when something isn't being met. Dr. Maxine has spent 25 years building the map that explains it. Once you have it, the meltdown reads differently.

There is also the piece that most people are not quite ready to hear. When we parent, we regress. We meet our children from our own unmet five-year-old self - not the adult we've become. Carl Jung said it plainly: if there's anything you see in your child that you wish to change, first change it in yourself. Not a guilt trip. The most practical instruction in the episode.

Jodi, Kerri and Dr. Maxine get into:
• reading your child's resistance as a message, not a failing
• why the school system was not designed for your child - and why that is history, not opinion
• the 7 foundational needs all children carry from birth, and how they speak through behaviour when unmet
• tracing what's on the surface back to the need underneath
• what it means to parent from your own unmet childhood, and what to do about it
• why nothing that's happened so far is irreparable

For the parent who keeps pushing at the gate and feels something in their body they can't argue away. For the one sitting with Monday morning stomach aches that no strategy touches. For anyone whose child is fine for everyone else and falls apart the moment they get home.

Two parts. Worth the time.

Find Dr Maxine Therese's resources and course at childosophy.com

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