Invisible labor. It’s the work — in our households especially — that has to happen but that no one sees. It’s making the doctor’s appointment, ensuring the Valentine’s cards are purchased, remembering the milk. When we think about equity in household labor, we often find that there are already inequities in the visible work, and they can become insurmountable when the invisible work is added in.

Today on ParentData, Eve Rodsky joins with some solutions to this seemingly endless task list of problems. Her book, “Fair Play: A Game-Changing Solution for When You Have Too Much to Do (and More Life to Live),” and the movement it’s inspired, aims to rebalance workloads and encourage hard conversations, saving time, sanity, and even marriages along the way.

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Sex in long-term relationships, often after kids — it’s something many people struggle with. When we did a big ParentData survey on your sex lives, a lot of you expressed unhappiness, stress, and pressure about how much sex was the “right” amount, whether you were behind (or too far ahead!).

Today on ParentData, Emily Nagoski — sex researcher and author of “Come Together: The Science (and Art!) of Creating Lasting Sexual Connections” —  is here to talk about taking that pressure off and redefining normal. We dive into the anxiety long-term couples face, how much sex everyone else is really having and how little that should matter for you and your partner, and how to evolve sexually… together.

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Exercise. Whether you’re an athlete or just depend on activity for a little dose of sanity, the pregnancy and postpartum periods can knock you sideways and make you feel estranged from your own body.

Today on ParentData, Megan Roche — researcher, podcaster, and trail runner machine — joins to discuss how to ease back into activity postpartum, why women’s health is understudied, and the value of carbohydrates. But the conversation goes beyond just sports. It’s also about how to return to the things you love to do after becoming a parent — and feel a little more like yourself.

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Through coos and cries, babbles and thbbbbts, babies are learning how to communicate from the earliest days of life. Language development is a magical opportunity to watch a child learn to engage with both you and the world. It also feels highly consequential, and for so many parents, it’s an incredibly stressful milestone. Watching your kid learn to talk is at once neat and frustrating and harrowing, all the more so when we realize that even the experts are often scratching their heads about how it all works.

Today on ParentData, Professor Michael Frank joins to explore the question of how children learn to speak. We talk about how language develops, the difference between receptive and expressive language, whether the pandemic had a significant impact, and which language is the hardest for kids to learn (spoiler alert: it’s Danish).

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Earlier this year, Emily interviewed Majka Burhardt, a professional ice climber (seriously) and the author of “More: Life on the Edge of Adventure and Motherhood,” a raw, gripping book about the first years of parenthood. The book has recently been released as an audiobook, and in this bonus episode of ParentData, we’re thrilled to share some clips and re-run the interview. Majka tackles the uncertainties and fears of parenting with the same clear-eyed intensity and grace as she tackles mountains, and we hope she offers you some inspiration over the holidays.

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Grief can mean a lot of different things, from the loss of a loved one to the loss of a much-wanted pregnancy or marriage. It’s a heavy topic for the holidays, but this can also be a tough time when you’re dealing with loss.

Today on ParentData, writer Marisa Renee Lee gets into the heart of grief - which, from a data perspective, will affect approximately 100% of us - in her book "Grief Is Love." She discusses the need for parents to give, and to take, while weathering the waves of loss, and love.

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Labor induction did not used to be the norm, but it increasingly is. A big reason for this change is something called the ARRIVE trial, which was designed to test whether routine induction would increase the risk of cesarean section - which, according to the results, it did not. In the wake of the trial, with that concern limited, many more doctors began recommending inductions as routine. (This refers to inductions that are not done by medical necessity; in many cases, it is necessary to induce, sometimes earlier than 39 weeks, to protect the health of the mother or baby.) But this doesn’t work for everyone: some people would rather not be induced, and some researchers have argued that the results from ARRIVE actually do not hold up in the real world.

Today on ParentData, Dr. Nathan Fox, an OB/GYN and co-author of Emily's upcoming book, The Unexpected: Navigating Pregnancy During and After Complications joins to discuss the ARRIVE trial, its clinical aftershocks, and the risks and benefits of letting nature take its course... or grabbing the steering wheel.

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Self-care is everywhere. Bubble baths, massages, Instagram encouraging you to “take time for yourself.” Get up early to have coffee and meditate, or take a forest walk. It can get to the point where self-care itself is yet another thing to check off the to-do list. Send emails. Make lunches. Clean Cheerios off floor. Take forest walk.

Today on ParentData, psychiatrist Dr. Pooja Lakshmin wants to push back on this performative, box-checking, crystals-and-baths form of self-care. Her book Real Self-Care: A Transformative Program for Redefining Wellness is about what it actually takes to create wellness for ourselves. She talks about setting boundaries, tuning out the critics, and what true self-care can mean to each of us.

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Earlier this year, Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy issued a new advisory about the effects of social media on the mental health of young people. These advisories are rare; we're used to seeing them on the sides of cigarette packs, where the negative health risks are indisputable. But social media and smartphones are more complicated. Today on ParentData, Dr. Murthy discusses the individual and systemic issues that led him to issue the advisory, and what he hopes, as both the nation's doctor and his kids’ father, it will accomplish.

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It’s time to make things awkward! Our journey through puberty is mercifully over, but we’ve still got to help our kids through it… and it may not be what we remember. Pediatrician Dr. Cara Natterson and journalist Vanessa Kroll Bennett, authors of “This is So Awkward: Modern Puberty Explained,” are here to dive headfirst into the surprising complexities of the endocrine system and how to stay close to our kids as they navigate today’s journey of adolescence.

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