Mandyland

Background

Jenn rants about her job for the first 13 minutes. So skip ahead if you don’t want to hear that. We eventually cover topics such as leadership, managing others, reference letters, challenges of being a working mom, brining your whole self to work, working/busy too much, life in balance, being addicted to work.

(BTW, my former student DID get the job that I’m referring to with that reference letter part of the conversation!).

Resources

* Money & Happiness: http://harvardmagazine.com/2007/01/the-science-of-happiness.html

Reflective Questions

* Do you provide real references for people? I.e., what do you do about the challenging parts of the person’s skill set?

* Do you have a yearly rhythm of creativity, whatever “creativity” means for you?

* What kind of support do you feel you’re lacking as a working mom? Are you an entrepreneurial mom with distinct support needs you feel are lacking?

* What kind of accommodations would help you (working moms) keep doing your good work?

* Are you honouring your whole brain?

* How is your work-life balance?

This was recorded back in the summer of 2014, long before Mandyland was conceptualized. At the time, I thought I would have a podcast with mine and Mike’s conversations. You can tell it’s old because I refer to Jian Gomeshi as the host of the Q back before we knew what kind of asshole he was. Most of what we talk about is the career of ranting and my desire to have pursued that, had I known about it at the time.

Background

We are all over the map in our conversation. We spent a great deal of time talking about poop, which I’m actually not ashamed of. I think we should talk about EVERYTHING as a culture, poop included. And this isn't even about baby poop. Just plain old regular adult poop. And the anxiety that provokes it! But that’s not all we talk about it. We started talking this conversation with a focus on authenticity in our writing and other projects and we actually do come back to that. I think the conclusion was that we write for ourselves... and maybe others care about it too. 

Resources

The real poop: https://youtu.be/ZuvAMJfYvBY (Allison McDonald)

Vanessa Vella's coaching website: https://www.vanessavellacoaching.com/

Jeana Boutilier's coaching website: http://thecoachingconnection.ca/life-coaching/

Poop cafe: http://www.poopcafe.ca/ 

​​​​​​​Dr Milene Ricardi, my amazing dentist at www.riccardidental.ca 

My ND, Dr. Du La: https://www.torontonaturopathicmedicine.ca/staff/du-la/

My Chiropractor, Dr. Kim Butler: http://www.fusionchiropractic.ca/bios/

Reflective Questions

* How much of your content is for you and how much for others?

* Should we talk about everyday things like pooping and periods?

* Are you writing about stuff that you are passionate about? Is experienced-based blogging a genre that is not "once a week" Scheduled blogging?

* Do you ever compliment random people just because?

* How do you make decisions? What sorts of decisions do you avoid? What factors negatively contribute to making a decision?

* Instead of looking for what you want what if you wrote a want ad?

Show Notes:

Background

This is an older recording from when our babes were under a year old and you can hear them in the background. What feels like a long time ago, Jenn and I were very active in alternative education systems, but at the time it was focussed on Post-Secondary Education. In this conversation, we talk about early childhood education. We play around with some ideas for how can we create a new education system distinct from the public school system and distinct from the homeschool system. We also just hash out education in general, as we typically do.

Resources

We don’t have any off the top of our head. Do you? Share them!

Reflective Questions

Do you feel empowered as a parent with your kids education?

How could you feel more empowered, if that’s of interest to you?

[How] are you educating your child now?

Are you intentionally doing anything or just letting them learn passively?

Greer currently lives in LA and was back in Toronto so we decided to meet at Riverdale Park to discuss parenting practices. We cover a lot of parenting topics in our hour and 20 min conversation including sleep training, responsive parenting, discipline, self-regulation, co-sleeping, childcare, and how to balance being a mom with work. We include personal anecdotes about my 2 year old and her dog!

Resources

* Dan Siegel’s The Whole Brain Child: https://www.amazon.ca/Whole-Brain-Child-Revolutionary-Strategies-Developing-ebook/dp/B004J4X32U/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1505422754&sr=1-1&keywords=whole+brain+child

* Kangaroo care, also known as Skin-to-Skin

* http://www.mountsinai.on.ca/patients/having-a-baby-at-mount-sinai/care-after-birth/skin-to-skin/skin-to-skin

* Skin-to-Skin C-Sections: http://sunnybrook.ca/media/item.asp?i=1125

* Maternity leave vs Parental leave article referring to 18 months.

Reflective Questions:

* Where is the line between needs and wants for you?

* Are you eager to discipline your child? Where is the desire to discipline coming from? Is it for the child’s benefit? Is there a difference between safety and habits and rules?

* Do you think birth and breastfeeding and child care are feminist issues?

* Have you ever been “mad” at society that you couldn’t take care of your baby? Are you mad that there is not enough support to be a mom? Or a working mom? Or that you can’t have “it all”?

* If you’re a mom who is in a parenting relationship with a partner, do you let your partner do things? Like really do things with the baby/child? How do you facilitate or impede equal participation

The conversation starts off with a reaction that Jenn had to a facilitator that I brought in for a retreat day for the staff of my company, the Centre for Applied Neuroscience. It sparked a whole conversation on privilege, which I admit was tough for me to have. I personally feel like it’s hard to talk about this, especially publicly, because out of fear that we might say the wrong thing. So I venture into this conversation feeling vulnerable. I think we dive into a few good points about it and I also feel more comfortable talking about it with Jenn, who I am very open with and who is a women of color (Chinese). So it was a great conversation to have!

We’re up at the cottage driving back from town. We start talking about my podcast but that leads into talking about doing things just for doing them, without another agenda. This leads into a conversation about science and how basic science is just for the sake of curiosity and how there is value in that. Despite this deviation into science, the conversation actually relates to people doing what they love and seeing where it goes. This is a belief I have held for a long time and it is the foundation of my coaching practice and how I personally navigate through life. At one point Mike also suggests that “Mandyland” sounds like a self-centred circus event! After listening to this podcast after the fact, I have to defend my desire to use Mandyland as an umbrella term. I don’t think it’s self-centred in the negative way we think of it but I do think it is self-centred in the sense that it is centred on me and my thoughts. And I stand by Mandyland as my playground! The conversation ends when we arrive at the cottage!

We started off with Lindsey reflecting on her maternity leave (which is about to end) and the anxiety she felt during her time off from work. It fed into a discussion about body image, which Lindsey and I have covered to a great extent through our co-founded organized, Body Monologues. The theme of this conversation was our “Expanding Identity”.

Overview of what to expect on Mandyland