What happens when your kids see you cry—and you tell them you’re “fine”?

In this episode, I talk about the quiet ways my depression showed up in front of my children, and what I didn’t realize I was teaching them by hiding it. How my daughter learned to become the caretaker. How my son tried to fix my sadness with spare change. And how my own fear of being honest about my feelings shaped their understanding of responsibility, safety, and love.

This is a story about the line between protecting your kids and burdening them, about emotional honesty, and about learning—slowly—to say “I’m sad” instead of “I’m fine.” It’s not about fixing everything. It’s about modeling that feelings are allowed, that crying doesn’t mean something is broken, and that kids don’t have to take care of their parents.

For parents navigating mental health, guilt, and the hope of teaching something new—even when you can’t undo the past.

I didn’t realize how quiet my daughter had become until I watched her stand in front of her class, barely able to make herself heard. At home, she’s confident, opinionated, and full of stories. But around other people, her voice disappears.

In this episode, I talk about what it’s like to realize your child isn’t just shy—but afraid. We explore the quiet fears kids carry, the pressure to be “confident,” and how easy it is to miss anxiety when it shows up as silence. I share our path toward understanding selective mutism, the difficult decision to seek therapy, and what actually helped along the way.

This isn’t a story about fixing a child. It’s about noticing, advocating, and learning how to support a child who wants to speak—but feels like she can’t.

For parents of quiet kids, anxious kids, and anyone who grew up learning to hide instead of take up space.

When your child gets hit at school, the advice comes fast—and it’s wildly contradictory. Teach them to fight back. Don’t ever fight back. Tell the teacher. Don’t tattle. Role-play responses. Don’t script anything.

In this episode, I share what it actually felt like navigating that confusion after my six-year-old was hit at school—and how lost I felt trying to find the “right” response. This isn’t an expert guide or a perfect solution. It’s a real story about advocating for your child when you’re unsure, validating their experience without making it worse, working with a school that can’t see everything, and learning to let go of the idea that there’s a single correct answer.

We talk about practical things that helped (and some that didn’t), the fear kids have around tattling, and the hardest part of parenting: doing your best and still not knowing if it made the difference.

This episode is for parents who are trying, worrying, and showing up—without a script.

The school calendar is a minefield of breaks—February, April, summer, Thanksgiving, Christmas, plus random minimum days. Everyone seems to be skiing or going to Disneyland or jetting off somewhere Instagram-worthy. We can't afford to compete, but the guilt is crushing. Last February we stayed home and I felt like I was failing my children. Then I asked Liam his favorite memory from last year. Not the beach trip. Not the mountains. The blanket fort we built in the living room on a random Saturday. Maybe enough isn't about the number of trips. Or maybe I'm just telling myself that.

Liam thinks "finders keepers" applies to every dollar in the house. Ria wants a trip to Japan because her classmate went, but gave up saving for it in three weeks. And me? I cope with anxiety by online shopping, then drag my kids to Target to return everything, teaching them exactly the wrong lesson. We're trying the shoebox method, opening investment accounts, figuring out financial literacy together. But how do you teach what you're still learning? How do you model good money habits when yours are a mess? I don't have answers. Just envelopes and hope.

My son got punched at school. My daughter is afraid to speak in class. My son wants to spend all his money on LEGOs we don't need. And I'm sitting in my too-quiet house on bereavement leave, realizing I have no idea how to help them with any of it. I'm a working mom with depression, a job I hate but can't leave, and a life that looks perfect from the outside but feels like drowning on the inside. So I'm starting to write. About the parking lot moments, the unanswered questions, and what it's really like to raise humans while trying to figure out how to be one myself.