Like a Mother

I've known Alaina Shearer, aka MsSingleMama, since I started blogging 3.5 years ago. We bumped into one another at a conference, she immediately shared with me all her advice on blogging and dating, and we kept in touch through the years -- including two summers ago when my kids and I crashed at her amazing, rambling yellow farm house she shares wit her wonderful second husband, their four collective kids and a few animals.

In this episode Alaina and I discuss the state of single motherhood, why the world has it all wrong when it comes to moms dating, and how she went from being a blissfully single mom to falling hard and fast for the soul-mate-man-of-her dreams.

Read my profile of Alaina on Forbes: How Alaina Shearer Launched A $1.2M Marketing Agency As A Single Mom.

Loving this podcast? Follow on RSS or  iTunes. Leave a review, me love you long time. Muah! 

Are you part of the new Facebook group, Millionaire Single Moms? No income requirement, though BIG GOALS and a POSITIVE MINDSET required! Join now! 

I hear from women who want to game the system, not earn too much so their child support or alimony payments won't be compromised.

I also hear from women who pay their ex support and alimony, and they, too, limit themselves out of worry of having to pay out more than they care to. And, they may find themselves doing that very thing.

But … who cares?! Ask yourself this: When you are 82 years old, looking back at your life, what do you want to think:

Wow, I really stuck it to my ex all those years and cashed his checks. So awesome!

Or ….

I am so proud that I seized on my creative ideas, worked really fucking hard, created not only a really amazing life for myself and my kids, but also gave them the gift of financial comfort and a role model for making their own dreams a reality — and never being in the crippling situation of financial dependence on another person.

Loving this podcast? Follow on RSS or  iTunes. Leave a review, me love you long time. Muah! 

Are you part of the new Facebook group, Millionaire Single Moms? No income requirement, though BIG GOALS and a POSITIVE MINDSET required! Join now! 

Who you surround yourself with matters. Science is on my side with this. If your friends smoke, you are more likely to smoke. If your friends are overweight, you are likely, too. Divorced? Your friends are next!

I have started to see people in one of two camps:

I just don't have time for victims. They are on a different course. That is fine, but I don't want to hang out with you. I don't want to do business with you, and I don't think you're a good influence for my kids.

And so I don't call my old friend. I see her around, and she is a nice and good person. I wish her the best. But she kills my mojo. Call me sensitive, I don't care. There are too many other awesome people who will are in my camp, living full lives and taking responsibility for their happiness.

If you have that toxic friend, that single mom friend -- even if she is the only other single mom in your own town! -- it is OK to distance yourself from her. You will be kind, but it may be painful for both of you. But doing so is a gift to yourself. By saying 'no' to that friendship you are telling yourself: "I am a positive person who is capable great things, and manifesting my own greatness!"

You can't keep that truth alive if you spend energy on others who suck yours.

Even other single moms.

This is one of the reasons I created Millionaire Single Moms, my Facebook group of 1,000 moms who are DREAMING BIG for their lives, and are FORBIDDEN from whining or playing victim. These are my women! Some have huge corporate jobs, others are hustling as they start new businesses, others transitioning from staying home with their kids back into the workforce -- and everything in between. But they are positive, smart, real and, generally so awesome.

Just today a new member wrote:

I was excited to see this group because, locally, all the single mom groups have very low expectations for themselves. They seem to be more about how they can get everything from everyone else instead of going out and getting it themselves. This is refreshing!

Today I give you permission to shed from your life toxic people. I also invite you to join our group of awesome people -- Awesome single moms, to be exact!

Are you part of the new Facebook group, Millionaire Single Moms? No income requirement, though BIG GOALS and a POSITIVE MINDSET required! Join now! 

Last month Lizanne Falsetto, 52, sold her protein bar company, ThinkThin, for $217 million -- a huge triumph for this single mom without a college degree.

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For the past 10 years Free-Range Kids' Lenore Skenazy,  New York City journalist and mom of two, has been taking one for the team. The Free-Range Kids author and blog founder has been on a one-woman mission to give kids back the freedom and autonomy they need to grow into self-actualized adults.

I can't get enough of every single thing she has to say, including stats like:

In fact, the most dangerous thing your kids can do? RIDE IN A CAR!!

I love Lenore's informed candor about what is happening in the world, and what you and I can do about it. Examples:

My only problem with the Free-Range Kids movement is that it isn't adopted widely or quickly enough -- despite my eff-you nature I still feel pressure from other parents to hover, coddle and bake way more cupcakes than are good for my time management or public health. I resent that when I am forced to spend time with my kids at the playground, those are hours I cannot work -- or do something less mind-numbing.

For moms like me, Skenazy created Free-Range Friend Finder, a no-cost site where you can connect with like-minded (i.e. sane, with a life of your own) parents in your neighborhood. Check it out! 

I love Lauren Greutman. I mean, who else can talk about coupons and budgeting and you still like her after? Lauren and her husband Mark run IAmThatLady.com, a site devoted to teaching families how to build the life they want -- on a budget.

In this episode Lauren tells me the amazing, devastating and hilarious story about how her family overspent on a lavish lifestyle until they were $40,000 in debt -- and clawed their way out of it, slinging steaks and living on a tightwad budget. Also, she will crack you up with my most favorite story of hers: Having her pink Cadillac repo'd in the most dramatic way possible (tears ensued). 

In the past few weeks Lauren's freezer meal plans have been blowing up, thanks in part to her appearances on Today, Fox and Friends, Dr. Oz and Good Morning America. 

Have a listen! And check out  IAmThatLady.com ! 

I've been friends and a fan (fran?) of Christelyn Russell-Karazin for a long time. A mom of two, freelance writer and founder of BeyondBlackAndWhite.com, Christelyn has impressed/shocked me with her razor-sharp stance on interracial relationships. A black woman married to a white man, who also had an unplanned baby with a black man, she is adamant that women of color find love, marriage and family men they deserve -- regardless of race. 

What sets Christelyn's blog apart from any other voice on race -- aside from the astonishing interaction with readers -- is that in her smart and sharp voice, she admonishes everyone brands, the media, Washington and black men and women alike for their stance on race, relationships and policy. She gets pissed off, takes a stand and says front-and-center what trolls typically post in the comments section. In between posts about beauty products, her garden and love stories about interracial couples, recent topics include criticizing a black woman for suing her boyfriend for messing up her hair in the pool;  being irate that only light-skinned, straight-haired women of color are considered beautiful, and her own on-point take about the recent conviction of a white police officer for raping black women.

In this episode Christelyn schools me on the pressures successful black women face to marry within their race -- including from the church -- and shares her own journey from being an unmarried mom with what appeared to be the perfect black man, to meeting and falling in love with a white catholic guy from waspy Westport, Conn. (a "Wasc" she calls him). She dissects the layers of interracial relationships, including why it is more acceptable for a black man to date a white woman than the other way around, and let's me know that my question about white men having black-women fetishes is racist. 

Have a listen, check out BeyondBlackAndWhite.com, thank me later. 

I'm a traveler. Starting at age 15 when I took off for a year of study in France, hopping on a plane, navigating around a new city, chatting up the locals and finding my way around a bus terminal or market is not only natural to me, but also one of my greatest joys.

I want to share that joy with my kids, and also, even though I'm a parent, I don't want to stop traveling myself (call me selfish, I could care less). I've written a lot about the annual road trip I take with Helena and Lucas  (The Wall Street Journal interviewed me about my radical policy of no tablet in the car. Common, America! Gah!), and now that they are older we are taking more adventurous trips -- they to Greece with their dad in the summers, and hopefully skiing this winter.

I sympathize with parents who are terrified about traveling with kids. I admit that the morning after returning from our three-week road trip last year, I could.not.get.out.of.bed. Not because I was so tired. But because being home felt sososoossoososososo good! Those kids can kick my butt.

But today's guest is such an inspiration. Caz Makepeace, together with her husband Craig, run the site YTravelblog.com, and have barely paused their globetrotting when they had their two daughters. Today, the young Australian family writes about their adventures and trials across their home country, Asia and the United States, and helps families do the same.

In this interview, Caz shares her advice on how to affordably travel with kids (Craig is a carpenter, and Caz is a teacher), some of her most favorite on-the-road memories with her daughters, and her most harrowing family travel experience ever (I'm not sure I would admit this one publicaly, but am grateful she did!).

When I was growing up in Sycamore, Ill. (pop. 10,000), I dreamed of moving to New York City to be fabulous: To have a fabulous career, attend fabulous events, and hang out with fabulous people.

My dreams came true, for the most part. Including the people part, even if I spend much of my free time with Betsy Smith, my friend from Sycamore, Ill. (pop. 10,000).

You've met Betsy in previous episodes. She's married to Kris, a podcast maven with whom she co-hosts the epic Croncast show and who produced this very show. Betsy is also principal of social media marketing agency AllinSmith, and mom to two awesome kids, whom my kids adore. In fact, this weekend my kids are staying at the Smiths so I can spend time with my European lover who is flying in. 

In other words, Betsy and I are all up in each other's business, and business is what she and I like to talk about most. Business and money. And how those things differer in Sycamore compared with New York, and why we used to not make money and now we do, and how we can make much more. Also: relationships, as we were both raised by single moms. 

Have a listen, laugh your ass off, thank me later. 

I first saw Cocoa Brown in Tyler Perry’s Single Mom’s Club, in which she plays a down-and-out mom with a husband and son in jail and struggling to find child care while she waited tables at the local diner.

In real life, Cocoa is a very real single mom of a 3-year-old, and she is killing it in her career as a standup comic and actress. Roles include Jennifer on Tyler Perry’s For Better or Worse series on TBS, and the upcoming miniseries American Crime Story, in which Cocoa plays Queen Bee, a pivotal juror in the OJ Simpson trial.

In this hilarious interview, Cocoa shares her story about:

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