Ground Control Parenting with Carol Sutton Lewis

What can a ballerina, an inventor, a pediatric psychologist, a First Lady, and three generations of moms teach us about parenting?  As Season 8 comes to a close, Carol revisits some of the many conversations offering memorable answers.

Misty Copeland, Dr. Marian Croak, Maryland’s First Lady Dawn Moore, and the moms of On the Ground were among the many guests who shared their stories and practical parenting guidance this season. Across these very different conversations, a few truths surfaced again and again: talk to your kids honestly, keep talking with them as they grow, and give yourself grace. 

Carol also looks back on the launch of new segments On the Ground and GCP BookTalk, and the first Ground Control Parenting Shower on Martha’s Vineyard. Join Carol for the Season 8 wrap-up, then catch up on any episodes you missed!

Follow Ground Control Parenting:
📱 Instagram, TikTok & Facebook: @GroundControlParenting
💼 LinkedIn: Carol Sutton Lewis
🌐 Website: GroundControlParenting.com
📫Substack: @carolsuttonlewis

What helps a child walk into an unfamiliar room and believe they belong there?

For Jen Hayes Lee, it has always been a pair of golden hoop earrings. In this GCP Book Talk, Jen joins Carol to discuss her debut children’s book, The Golden Hoops, inspired by the first pair she received from her mother. Jen is head of marketing at The Bump, founder of Bestow Collection, host of the No Guide for This podcast, and one of the moms from GCP’s On the Ground series.

Jen shares how her golden hoops made her feel connected to her mom and helped her hold onto her Black identity while growing up in predominantly white environments. She and Carol explore the cultural history carried by hoop earrings, what children may need when they are feeling like outsiders, and how parents can use the lessons of The Golden Hoops to help both girls and boys enter new spaces with confidence. 

Follow Ground Control Parenting:
📱 Instagram, TikTok & Facebook: @GroundControlParenting
💼 LinkedIn: Carol Sutton Lewis
🌐 Website: GroundControlParenting.com
📫Substack: @carolsuttonlewis

Dr. Marian Croak is one of the most influential inventors of our time. With more than 200 patents, she helped develop Voice over Internet Protocol, the technology that makes Zoom, FaceTime, and WhatsApp possible. She has transformed the way people around the world communicate.

Dr. Croak joins Carol for a deeply personal conversation about parenting, including how her parents turned a frightening childhood mistake into a defining lesson, and how their example shaped her approach to failure, invention, and raising her own three children.

During this episode Dr. Croak offers a memorable image for the tension between an intense career and family life, shares a question she has asked herself every year throughout four decades of work, and reveals the one piece of guidance she believes is the greatest gift a parent can give a child.


Follow Ground Control Parenting:
📱 Instagram, TikTok & Facebook: @GroundControlParenting
💼 LinkedIn: Carol Sutton Lewis
🌐 Website: GroundControlParenting.com
📫Substack: @carolsuttonlewis

Madam C.J. Walker built a groundbreaking business and created opportunities for thousands of Black women. She also raised a daughter, A’Lelia Walker, whom she loved fiercely and tried hard to protect. Sometimes that protection felt like pressure.

In this GCP Book Talk, Carol talks with award-winning journalist A’Lelia Bundles about her book, Joy Goddess: A’Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance, the story of her great-grandmother.  They explore the complicated bond between Madam Walker and her daughter, the difficulty of watching our children make choices we believe are wrong, and the challenge of growing up in the shadow of a powerful family legacy.

Come for a fascinating story of Black history, culture, and achievement. Stay for the unexpected parenting lessons about love, control, identity, and letting our children find their own way.


Follow Ground Control Parenting:
📱 Instagram, TikTok & Facebook: @GroundControlParenting
💼 LinkedIn: Carol Sutton Lewis
🌐 Website: GroundControlParenting.com
📫Substack: @carolsuttonlewis

What happens when you throw a shower for parents? 

At the Ground Control Parenting Shower on Martha's Vineyard, parents at various stages of the journey spent an afternoon being informed, inspired, and celebrated.

In this special episode, Carol goes behind the scenes at the Shower, describing how the afternoon was built around four issues that matter deeply to GCP families, and sharing some of the best advice and resources that parents took home courtesy of sponsors Morgan Stanley, Meta, The College Board, and DonorsChoose.

The episode also takes us back inside Carol’s live conversation with Abby Phillip and Courtney B. Vance about raising children who are grounded and confident. Courtney shares how he and Angela Bassett created a strong “rhythm of the household” for their twins, and how they worked to keep their privilege from becoming their children’s definition of normal. Abby talks about the high expectations of her immigrant parents, the role of grace in her life and career, and how she is teaching her daughter to find her sense of worth within herself, rather than in other people’s praise or criticism.

Come inside the GCP Shower and discover what happens when parents get some of the attention, encouragement, and support they truly deserve. 

Follow Ground Control Parenting:

📱 Instagram, TikTok & Facebook: @GroundControlParenting
💼 LinkedIn: @Carol Sutton Lewis
🌐 Website: GroundControlParenting.com
📫Substack: @carolsuttonlewis                                                                   

How do you raise children who are confident in who they are, especially when they are growing up in a world very different from the one you grew up in?

Recorded live at the Ground Control Parenting Shower on Martha’s Vineyard, Carol sits down with CNN anchor and author Abby Phillip and Emmy and Tony Award-winning actor and author Courtney B. Vance for an intergenerational conversation about the values we carry from our own childhoods and the ones we choose to pass on.

Abby and Courtney talk with Carol about resilience, high expectations, raising Black children in predominantly white spaces, and why showing up at your child’s school matters. They also wrestle with a challenge many parents face as they become more successful: how do you give your children opportunities you didn’t have without taking away their hunger and drive?

From Courtney’s determination to keep his twins grounded despite growing up with famous parents to Abby’s powerful belief that no one else can give you your value—and therefore no one else can take it away—this is a candid conversation about raising children who know who they are, wherever they find themselves.

Follow Ground Control Parenting:
📱 Instagram, TikTok & Facebook: @GroundControlParenting
💼 LinkedIn: Carol Sutton Lewis
🌐 Website: GroundControlParenting.com 
📫Substack: @carolsuttonlewis

Periods. Sex. Fertility. Perimenopause. Menopause. There’s a lot we wish someone had told us about sooner. How do we do better with the next generation? 

Carol welcomes back Dr. Sharon Malone, acclaimed OB-GYN and author of Grown Woman Talk, for a frank and funny conversation about women’s hormonal health from puberty through menopause. Dr. Sharon shares what we need to tell our daughters and what we should be telling our sons.  Dr. Sharon clears up persistent misconceptions about perimenopause and hormone therapy and reminds us that suffering through symptoms should never simply be accepted as part of life.

Follow Ground Control Parenting:
📱 Instagram, TikTok & Facebook: @GroundControlParenting
💼 LinkedIn: Carol Sutton Lewis
🌐 Website: GroundControlParenting.com
📫Substack: @carolsuttonlewis

The "Life on the Hormonal Highway" Playlist--Enjoy!!

10 songs, tracking the episode's journey from puberty through menopause:

"Life Is a Highway" — Rascal Flatts (the episode's theme, set at the top of the conversation)
"Can We Talk" — Tevin Campbell (talking with daughters about puberty and periods)
"Let's Talk About Sex" — Salt-N-Pepa (the sex talk, and the pleasure gap)
"Shots" — LMFAO ft. Lil Jon (the three-shot HPV vaccine series)
"(You're) Having My Baby" — Paul Anka (egg freezing and the fertility window)
"Roller Coaster" — Ohio Players (perimenopause and menopause, "because it is truly a roller coaster")
"Get Ready" — The Temptations (perimenopause and menopause)
"How Will I Know" — Whitney Houston (perimenopause and menopause)
"Hot Hot Hot" — Arrow (hot flashes)
"Hot in Herre" — Nelly (hot flashes)

Every parent has had the moment. Your child seems permanently attached to their phone, and you wonder how to balance protecting them, trusting them, and preparing them for a world that is becoming more digital by the day.

In this episode of GCP On the Ground, Carol Sutton Lewis is joined by panelists Jen Hayes Lee and Keisha Sutton-James for an honest conversation about raising children in the age of screens. Together, these three moms represent three generations of parenting, each putting their own spin on the opportunities and challenges technology presents for today's families.

Their conversation moves beyond the familiar debate about how many hours kids spend on devices to explore the harder questions. Should parents track their children's location? Is the content our kids consume more important than the amount of time they spend online? When every other family seems to have different rules, how do you decide what is right for yours?

Carol, Keisha and Jen offer a practical framework for navigating a world our own parents never had to imagine. Whether your child is asking for their first device or already carries one everywhere, this conversation will leave you thinking differently about screen time, trust, family expectations, and the values that should guide every parenting decision long after today's technology becomes tomorrow's history.

Follow Ground Control Parenting:

📱 Instagram, TikTok & Facebook: @GroundControlParenting
💼 LinkedIn: Carol Sutton Lewis
🌐 Website: GroundControlParenting.com
📫Substack: @carolsuttonlewis

Grace Bastidas has spent her career finding the parenting stories that mainstream media tends to miss: first as the founder of a multicultural parenting brand for Latinx caregivers, then as the first woman of color to lead Parents in its hundred-year history, and now as the writer behind The Mommune, a substack about the realities of motherhood. In this GCP Book Talk, Grace returns to the podcast to talk with Carol about what she is building next.   

Grace shares with Carol what she's learned so far from mothers across the country: a farmer in Colorado, a death doula in Detroit, a mother in Arkansas working three jobs to provide for her kids. The conversation turns personal as Grace talks about stepping away from a major leadership role, the exhaustion she didn't expect, and her effort to stay present for her daughters without hovering.  

For listeners navigating their own transitions, whether that's a career change, a shift in how much space they're giving their kids, or simply the guilt of not knowing if they're doing enough, this conversation offers lots of great insights. Grace and Carol talk candidly about what it looks like to stay present for your children without hovering, and about giving yourself permission to have a full life alongside them. It's a reminder that raising kids well and building something meaningful for yourself don't have to be in competition with each other.

Follow Ground Control Parenting:
📱 Instagram, TikTok & Facebook: @GroundControlParenting
💼 LinkedIn: Carol Sutton Lewis
🌐 Website: GroundControlParenting.com
📫Substack: @carolsuttonlewis

So many of us are parenting through a fog of uncertainty right now—war, economic strain, and headlines that can make the future feel more frightening than hopeful. This week, Carol sits down with Stanford professor and futurist Dr. Maisha T. Winn to ask a question many parents want to know: How do we raise children who can imagine a future worth building?

Maisha's answer reaches back to her own childhood. Raised in one of the independent Black Saturday schools born during the Black Power movement, she grew up learning that communities don't simply worry about the future—they create it. In her new book, Futuring Black Lives, Maisha argues that today's parents can borrow directly from that era's playbook: reimagine the world instead of just reacting to it, and raise our children to reimagine it as well.

Carol and Maisha talk about turning struggle into a source of strength, helping kids think critically about AI, rebuilding a sense of village in an increasingly disconnected world, and raising children who believe they can help shape the future.  

Resource: Find Future Me

Follow Ground Control Parenting:
📱 Instagram, TikTok & Facebook: @GroundControlParenting
💼 LinkedIn: Carol Sutton Lewis
🌐 Website: GroundControlParenting.com
📫Substack: @carolsuttonlewis