Melissa Gould lost her husband Joel nearly nine years ago when their daughter, Sophie, was 13 years old. The mother and daughter processed the loss in their very own, very distinct ways: Sophie grieved mostly in silence as a young teen, not wanting to attract pity or stand out from her peers. Melissa grieved loudly – and then publicly, when her memoir, Widowish, came out last year. We talk to both Melissa and Sophie about how complicated it can be when grief takes different shapes in the family, and how their mother-daughter relationship is evolving into one between two adults.

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In this episode we celebrate the caregivers and chosen family members who bring so much into our lives. Yasmeen talks to sisters adrienne maree brown and autumn brown, hosts of the podcast  How To Survive The End of the World. As writers, facilitators, activists (and queer aunties), they know a lot about nurturing community. They discuss the growth of their relationship as parent/auntie, the radical possibilities of ‘auntiehood’, and the real work of nurturing chosen family.

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When the kids are away, how do parents play? Sure, we all have interests we can tick off and activities we like doing as grown-ups. But when that rare chunk of free time comes along, what’s going to serve you well in that moment? In this episode, Yasmeen explores how we can all figure out what we really want to do when we have time to ourselves – along with how we can find moments of personal freedom while parenting.  We reach out to  two “experts” on the matter: Yasmeen’s mom, who took up a long list of various activities over her years of raising kids, and Sara Shapouri, a mindfulness teacher who occasionally moonlights as an animal-costume-wearing musician.

Try a meditation for parents from Sara Shapouri in the Ten Percent Happier app. In this meditation, Sara helps you settle your nervous system and then ask: what do I need right now?

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Erin is a mother of three teenagers. As her oldest prepares to leave home, she wonders how she can go about strengthening their strained relationship. She wrote to Childproof for advice and we enlisted the help of veteran meditation teacher James Baraz, who has personal experience healing his own relationship with an adult child.

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Being a parent means dealing with a wild range of emotions all the time, both our own and those of our children. Sometimes we may feel rage, sometimes total elation. How are we supposed to make sense of that? Today we’re sharing the first two episodes of a new show at Ten Percent Happier called More Than a Feeling. It dives into the confusing, exhilarating, and messy world of human emotions — and how to make sense of them.

In More Than A Feeling’s first episode, we hear host Saleem Reshamwala grapple with defining emotions in the first place (we don’t always have the best language for this). Then, in an episode called “Get Me Out Of Here,” producer Mark Pagán goes deep on one emotion: fear. Specifically, his own fear of riding the New York City subway. We follow along for the (actual) ride.

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Tom Sheppard didn’t grow up with his parents, but he spent his life trying to learn more about them. When Tom was just 3 years old, his father killed his mother. That part he knew. But he never got the full story on why and how it all happened. What’s more, he knew that the relatives who were lovingly raising him were withholding information about the incident. They weren’t lying to him, but he never got the whole truth either. Until a handful of years ago. 

In this episode, Tom tells us about the secret his family kept. And how his yearning to uncover the details over the years helped define who he is as a father.

As a heads up, this episode contains depictions of violence.

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We know interrupted sleep comes with the job of raising kids, especially at the beginning. Night and day bleed into each other and, before long, we’re in a nonstop loop of pacing, rocking, changing, feeding and wondering: will I ever sleep again? 

In this episode we check in with a few under-slept parents about how a prolonged lack of rest has affected their lives and, in some cases, sense of self. We also talk with Dr. Lauren Whitehurst, a cognitive neuroscientist specializing in sleep, about how to be patient with our bodies and brains when we’re sleep-deprived.

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Having a job and having a child isn’t just a balancing act of two different roles. It’s a whole new identity to figure out — you are a working parent. But if you spend your efforts being devoted to work, and then devoted to kids, where does that leave… you know… you? How do you toggle between these different tasks and mindsets, draw firm boundaries between your work and home life, and still take time to check in with yourself? 

In this episode we’re sharing an adaptation of an article we did for the new parents issue of Romper, the online parenting magazine, focusing on mothers navigating the transition back to work after parental leave.

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