Your Parenting is Showing

In this episode we talk with social worker Brittany Walker Pettigrew. Brittany is a Black mom raising three Black children, two by birth and one by adoption, in Oakland, CA. Brittany had so much wisdom to share that this is a long one. You’re going to want to listen to the whole thing more than once so take it in snack size bites.

In part one, we discuss why the value and weight of education is different for BIPOC kids than for White kids and what this means as we emerge into an almost-post-pandemic new normal. Brittany asks, “Will my children’s time be evaluated with the same compassion?” She shares her thoughts on what it means to be resilient and who gets to define the metric of resilience.

In the second half hour, Brittany shares what she learned from the experience, post 2016 election, of being part of a program that attempted to bridge the political divide between liberal West Coast women and conservative women from Alabama. She shares the value of getting curious about someone’s lived experience and names curiosity as a spiritual practice. She encourages us all to work to create new viscera.

On this episode, we chatted all sorts of things with our dear far flung friend Dr. Sarah Green. Sarah is a poet and professor of literature and creative writing at St. Cloud University in Minnesota. She is a stepmom of two great kids and a poetry mom to many more. The roots of this friendship go back to our days in Somerville, MA and you'll get plenty of Boston references. You'll also get to join us in a discussion of pandemic attention and creativity (or lack thereof), what we might keep and what we plan to toss away from pandemic times both literally from our closets (think pandemic liberation from button pants) and figuratively from our families, and parenting as improv. We talk about the power of being a "yes and" parent instead of a "no but" parent and the unexpected gift the pandemic has given Sarah of bonus parent leave. Molly gives us her theory of poets as historians from the future come into the present moment and Sarah reminds us of Molly's "Spring is not Safe" sermon, more true in 2020-21 than when she preached it years ago.

The Rev. Dr. Sarah Griffith Lund is an author, pastor and mental health advocate. She is also a good friend of Molly’s and, with a Masters in social work, brings a brilliant blend of both Ellen and Molly’s expertise. Sarah has a new book out Blessed Union: Breaking the Silence About Mental Illness and Marriage where she shares her own and others’ stories of marriages impacted by depression, anxiety, addiction..and now the stress of a global pandemic. All marriages are messy. If you are co-parenting in a marriage it’s even messier. Anyone can learn from Sarah’s lessons. Join us as she shares with us why there are 9 people in her marriage (It’s not what you think), how she talks with her son about mental illness in the family, and how to support anyone you love who is struggling in this time. Sarah also shares with us new vows for those wanting to recommit to a real and meaningful marriage - one that is willing to acknowledge all the mess and love through it.

A note that this episode includes discussion of suicide.

Amelia Richardson Dress is the author of The Hopeful Family: Raising Resilient Children in Uncertain Times. She writes about education, parenting and contemplative spirituality.  Also an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ, she currently serves as the Minister for Community Faith Formation at First Congregational, United Church of Christ Longmont.  She and her husband raise their daughter in a mixed-belief household in Colorado.

Amelia joined us to talk about her new book and the wisdom it holds for parenting in a pandemic. We talk about sticking with what works and about the power of humor in our families. If your kids are sick of you just existing you’ll appreciate the grounded wisdom Amelia shares.

Dr. Anne Fishel is a clinical psychologist, family and couples therapist, educator and author. Anne is co-founder of The Family Dinner Project, a nonprofit initiative started in 2010 that champions family dinner as an opportunity for family members to connect with each other through food, fun and conversation about things that matter. In this episode, Anne shares with us what she has learned through the pandemic about the power of family meals, the need to be flexible, and the beauty in imperfect things and rescheduled picnics with her own grown children. We are sure you will find Anne’s calm and wisdom as soothing as we did in these messy times. Anne is an Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School and taught Ellen much of the best stuff she knows, including the wisdom of wearing pants for an assertive posture when anticipating sessions with domineering dads.

Dr. Elizabeth Pinsky is a pediatrician, child psychiatrist, climate activist and mom of two. She is also Ellen’s colleague and friend and has an acerbic wit that almost makes you miss how wicked smaht she is. In August, Liz wrote a piece for the The Atlantic - We Flattened the Curve. Our Kids Belong in School in which she made the compelling case that getting kids back in school is a social justice issue that should transcend political schisms. In this episode, she shares her thoughts (and the science) on the priority of finding safe ways to get kids back in the classroom. We talk about what the real meaning of “family values” should be and about what the pandemic has revealed about the (scary low) priority children and families are to our culture and society. If you’ve been struggling to find the words to express your worry and fears for the impact of pandemic times on your kids and want the language to advocate for all our children, Liz is your role model. So much so that we’ll forgive her for having forgotten about our date to record this episode…maybe.

Welcome to Your Parenting is Showing: Snacktime - A special little bonus episode of good stuff we just couldn’t cut. Here our guest Quinn Caldwell talks about having participated in a COVID trial, how it squared with his parenting and what he wanted his kids to learn from his decision.  

With a special appearance by Asa. And where Quinn expands on the discussion of goat mating in the original episode to talk a bit about cow blood.

Rev. Quinn Caldwell is currently a stay-at-home papa and theological reflector in upstate NY where he lives on a farm and raises fainting goats with his husband and two children. Prior to turning to full-time husbandry of all kinds, he was pastor of Plymouth Congregational Church in Syracuse NY and before that served at Old South Church in Boston. Quinn is a member (with Molly) of the UCC Still Speaking Writers Group and regular contributor to their Daily Devotionals series. He is also author of All I Really Want: Readings for a Modern Christmas (Abington Press; 2014). And he and Molly put together a yearly Advent Calendar for families to help put some holi back in the holidays.

We are so excited to welcome Quinn as our inaugural guest on Your Parenting is Showing! Join us to share in his wisdom on parenting kids of both the goat and human variety, on the true meaning of Christmas and how it epitomizes 2020, and on how handy it is to have been a cloth diapering family in a pandemic.

In this episode we share with each other our own pandemic parenting blunders and worries and, as we tend to do, offer each other a bit of a grace.

Welcome to Your Parenting Is Showing: A podcast about what happens when your nice smooth professional front is upended by your parenting backstage, in pandemic-time. Here we introduce ourselves and lay a few ground rules for episodes to come.