Speaker 1: Hi. I'm Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist,
Speaker 1: and speaker.
Speaker 2: And I'm Sarah hart Hunger, a mother of three, practicing physician, writer,
Speaker 2: and course creator. We are two working parents who love
Speaker 2: our careers and our families.
Speaker 1: Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about
Speaker 1: how real women manage work, family, and time for fun.
Speaker 1: From figuring out childcare to mapping out long term career goals.
Speaker 1: We want you to get the most out of life.
Speaker 1: Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura. This
Speaker 1: episode is airing in early to mid May of twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five. I am going to be interviewing Megan Francis.
Speaker 1: She is the author of the new book, The Last
Speaker 1: Parenting Book You'll Ever Read. We also know her for
Speaker 1: as a longtime host of The Mom Hour, which is ending,
Speaker 1: but they are launching a new podcast about midlife lady pursuits,
Speaker 1: which is certainly a topic we cover in the interviews. So, Sarah,
Speaker 1: you are a longtime listener of The Mom Hour.
Speaker 2: Correct, Yes, many many years of listening to Megan and
Speaker 2: Sarah talk about parenting and all kind of parenting adjacent topics.
Speaker 3: So when they.
Speaker 2: Announced that their podcast was coming to a close. I
Speaker 2: was so sad, but then immediately thrilled that they're going
Speaker 2: to be coming up with a kind of new one
Speaker 2: with new life, so exciting.
Speaker 1: Well, they sort of realized that their kids had aged
Speaker 1: out of this time, you know that people were coming
Speaker 1: to the mom Hour, I think as she talked about
Speaker 1: expecting to hear about like baby products, like what's new
Speaker 1: in this and all that, and it's just they're not
Speaker 1: in that mind space anymore, and they wanted to just
Speaker 1: make a clean break and start something new, which I get.
Speaker 1: But Megan's book is all about, you know, when your
Speaker 1: kids get older and they're launching out into the real
Speaker 1: world and sort of the emptying nest and how that
Speaker 1: goes as a parenting phase and also is figuring out
Speaker 1: who you are in the absence of sort of these
Speaker 1: day caretaking responsibilities. So it's it's a phrase. I'm starting
Speaker 1: to enter it. I've got a while to go because
Speaker 1: I still have a five year old.
Speaker 2: But your nests, well you can take the part of
Speaker 2: the advice about the like launching part and yeah, your
Speaker 2: nest isn't gonna be empty, tell after mine's empty.
Speaker 1: Sorry, you got a while nah. Yeah, Well, Sarah, do
Speaker 1: you have any midlife lady leisure pursuits.
Speaker 2: I'm really like in the market for some because running
Speaker 2: was my big midlife lady pursuit. I mean, I it
Speaker 2: was so fun and it took up a lot of
Speaker 2: mental even when it wasn't running, I was like thinking
Speaker 2: on running, like the following running, but I had.
Speaker 1: A whole thing with it, like you were buying the
Speaker 1: shoes and you were listening to the running podcasts and
Speaker 1: all that.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, yeah, so I feel like I'm actively looking
Speaker 2: for some subs. I do feel like I could be
Speaker 2: a yoga lady, like that could be part of it,
Speaker 2: But then I also want something that's not physical specifically.
Speaker 1: Okay, I kind.
Speaker 2: Of like feel like cooking might be a thing maybe,
Speaker 2: but like.
Speaker 1: How would you make that sort of hobbyish versus like
Speaker 1: I need to cook dinner for my family.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I thought about maybe like cooking through a
Speaker 2: cookbook again, which is something I've done before, and choosing
Speaker 2: one that's kind of like has a cooking school feel
Speaker 2: to it, like how to make the perfect egg, how
Speaker 2: to make this. Now I wouldn't be able to do
Speaker 2: this every night, but it could be like a fun
Speaker 2: weekend activity that I like look forward to during the
Speaker 2: week and like maybe read about the techniques and then
Speaker 2: I like do them.
Speaker 1: So yeah, have you ever thought about actually taking like
Speaker 1: an in person cooking class or something.
Speaker 2: I might, but I don't like to leave the house
Speaker 2: at night very often.
Speaker 4: I know.
Speaker 1: But if it's a weekend activity already, I mean, then
Speaker 1: it could be a Saturday afternoon sort of thing, right,
Speaker 1: It's true, Okay, I wouldn't rule it out. Yeah, all right,
Speaker 1: what about you? Well, I guess singing is sort of
Speaker 1: my midlife lady leisure pursuit. You know. I'm now into
Speaker 1: two choirs. This is sort of humorous because many years ago,
Speaker 1: when I first moved to New York City, I was
Speaker 1: like in three choirs right when I was just on
Speaker 1: my own and like self employed, so I wasn't seeing
Speaker 1: people like during the day, and so I wound up
Speaker 1: joining three choirs to have things to get me out
Speaker 1: of the house at night, and then slowly that dwindled
Speaker 1: down to one. After I got married and started a family.
Speaker 1: Sang in the Young New Yorker's Chorus for many years,
Speaker 1: and then we left New York and I was not
Speaker 1: there for a while, and then I started up singing
Speaker 1: with my church choir here in Pennsylvania about almost eight
Speaker 1: years ago, and it was great. I enjoyed it. I'm
Speaker 1: still doing that and I've gotten to Jasper join us
Speaker 1: for some of our singing, which has been fun as well.
Speaker 1: But then I also was like, well, you know, I
Speaker 1: could do more, and I sang with a different choir
Speaker 1: to do the B Minor Mass over the holidays this
Speaker 1: year as something off my bucket list, and I was like, well,
Speaker 1: my fun to keep singing with them. So I happened.
Speaker 1: So now I'm back into two choirs and so that's
Speaker 1: my Monday and Thursday nights now. But I think I
Speaker 1: do think there's one of her, like midlife lady leisure
Speaker 1: pursuit things is like a lot of it's kind of
Speaker 1: tinkering or like fitting in spaces of time, and so
Speaker 1: I've been pondering with that. I mean, maybe my puzzles
Speaker 1: are that. Do you think that counts?
Speaker 2: I think that counts, especially if they're I mean, the
Speaker 2: only thing with puzzles is it's not really like a
Speaker 2: lot of growth element unless you're doing harder and harder
Speaker 2: puzzles or something.
Speaker 1: Maybe because there needs to be a growth element. I
Speaker 1: can't just like maybe there doesn't bread and let it
Speaker 1: go and like enjoy the bread and then keep making it.
Speaker 1: I don't know that there's growth in everything. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I really growth appeals to me a lot, even if
Speaker 2: it's like really minor growth, like oh, I'll learn one
Speaker 2: new yoga pose, or like I'll learn a cooking technique
Speaker 2: I didn't know before. Like it doesn't have to be
Speaker 2: fancy growth or like winning. I do you feel like
Speaker 2: there's some sort of like progression that makes hobbies more
Speaker 2: fun for me? But maybe that's a mean thing.
Speaker 1: Well, I would say there probably has been some progression
Speaker 1: on the puzzle front. I can tell you I'm better
Speaker 1: at them than people who've like never done puzzles before.
Speaker 1: Like they're picking up and like what do I do
Speaker 1: with this piece? Is like I mean I cannot do
Speaker 1: quickly like I know how, I have a strategy. Oh
Speaker 1: so then I think, yeah, I think it totally counts. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: all right, I can not.
Speaker 2: Even do a twenty piece puzzle while you did like
Speaker 2: a five hundred piece puzzle.
Speaker 1: Like I'm not kidding, there is a certain but yeah, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: Well then there we go. Although I don't like to
Speaker 1: come up with ones that are too challenging because then
Speaker 1: it is kind of my late night brainless sort of thing.
Speaker 1: So yeah, there are some that's like all blue, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, no, no, no, I will not be doing that.
Speaker 1: I need lots of kitschy art in.
Speaker 2: It to make it to a blue puzzle that's like
Speaker 2: all punishment is a punishment.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't want to do that. All right, Well, let's
Speaker 1: se what Megan Francis has to say. Well, Sarah and
Speaker 1: I are delighted to welcome Megan Francis to the show.
Speaker 1: So Megan, introduce yourself to our listeners.
Speaker 4: Hello, Hello, So yeah, I'm Megan Francis. I'm a mom
Speaker 4: of five. I'm a podcaster co host of the mom
Speaker 4: Our podcast. We've been in production for ten years, and
Speaker 4: I know that we've done some cross interviews with you guys.
Speaker 4: I can't remember which group of us was on which show.
Speaker 4: I feel like you were on The mom Hour with
Speaker 4: me and Sarah, my co host, was on Best of
Speaker 4: Both Worlds with yours Sarah.
Speaker 1: That is quite possible, Okay, I'd have to look through
Speaker 1: the archive.
Speaker 4: I and you and I go way back in the
Speaker 4: world of freelance writing. I've been a parenting writer primarily
Speaker 4: for gosh, over twenty years now.
Speaker 3: So yeah, we go way back.
Speaker 4: And I have a lot going on in my life
Speaker 4: where my kids are getting older. I got a divorce,
Speaker 4: I got remarried, I now have step children, I have
Speaker 4: a step grand baby, Laura.
Speaker 1: I'm in that world something.
Speaker 4: It's something, so yeah, that's kind of me in a nutshell.
Speaker 4: I live here in Michigan and I'm always loving to
Speaker 4: I don't know, just be trying new things.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, And Megan has a brand new book called
Speaker 1: The Last Parenting Book You'll Ever Read, which is a
Speaker 1: wonderful title, by the way. And you said you didn't
Speaker 1: really want to write another parenting book, and yes, here
Speaker 1: you are. Yes, So what happened what led you to this? Well,
Speaker 1: you know how.
Speaker 4: Kids get senior writis And I know this because I
Speaker 4: went through this last year. My fourth son was a
Speaker 4: high school senior and I feel like he has the
Speaker 4: worst scenior writers I've ever seen.
Speaker 3: And he was a very good student. And at some
Speaker 3: point I.
Speaker 4: Thought, oh, this is just like how I feel about
Speaker 4: writing about parenting. Like I'm ready. It's been a great run.
Speaker 4: I'm ready to be done. Can we just move on?
Speaker 4: So I actually had a book proposal all about midlife
Speaker 4: and kind of like mid life reinvention, and I was
Speaker 4: pitching that and my agent, you know, kept getting rejected.
Speaker 4: And my agent said, I hate to be like this,
Speaker 4: but don't you think you have something to say about
Speaker 4: parenting in this stage? I was like, yeah, but I
Speaker 4: don't want to, you know. It was kind of like
Speaker 4: a little bit of resistance to revisiting themes that I've
Speaker 4: been talking about now for so long on the podcast
Speaker 4: and for so long in other writing I've done, which
Speaker 4: has included other parenting books, that I thought, do I
Speaker 4: have anything left to say? Is there really do I
Speaker 4: even want to even inhabit this time of my life
Speaker 4: or do I just want to jump forward? And I
Speaker 4: think what I decided is that I don't get to
Speaker 4: jump forward, like I'm still in it. My daughter, who's
Speaker 4: the last kid in my house, she's a sophomore. I'm
Speaker 4: still very much in it for the next two and
Speaker 4: a half three years with a kid in the house,
Speaker 4: and I am living this right now.
Speaker 3: I don't just get to jump to the next thing.
Speaker 4: I actually have a lot to say about the transition
Speaker 4: that I'm in.
Speaker 3: So I got over it.
Speaker 4: I had an attitude adjustment once I decided that for me,
Speaker 4: it wouldn't be meaningful to write about midlife if I
Speaker 4: didn't include the transition of my motherhood story as part
Speaker 4: of it, which has been such a big part of
Speaker 4: my life. In your life and the content we create
Speaker 4: in all of.
Speaker 1: That, Yeah, so I think you called it lame duck parenting.
Speaker 1: At some point, it's like the last year of a
Speaker 1: presidential administration, Like you know it's going to be over,
Speaker 1: but you still have to run things.
Speaker 4: You're still do run things, and nobody cares that you're
Speaker 4: there anymore. That's how it feels like. My kids are
Speaker 4: just they don't know what they don't know about life.
Speaker 4: They have no idea how dumb they are about life
Speaker 4: right now, and it's my job to help them figure
Speaker 4: it out while also help them feel like they're the
Speaker 4: ones figuring it out, do you know what I mean,
Speaker 4: Like to help them feel a little smarter than they
Speaker 4: actually are.
Speaker 1: YEA, Yeah, Well, a lot of random texts about like
Speaker 1: things that maybe should be obvious or should not be obvious,
Speaker 1: like how do I pay at the dentist's office. I
Speaker 1: believe that was one of the ones you got.
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, yes, like so many random texts and questions,
Speaker 4: and in some ways it's flattering. I'm like, wow, you
Speaker 4: really I'm still the center of your world in a way.
Speaker 4: You really still think of me as this person who
Speaker 4: knows everything? And then I'll think, is it possible that
Speaker 4: I just missed an opportunity to teach you this? But actually,
Speaker 4: look back at your life when you were eighteen or nineteen,
Speaker 4: you didn't know anything. I didn't know anything at eighteen
Speaker 4: or nineteen. I just I conveniently forget how much my
Speaker 4: parents were still guiding me through things at that stage.
Speaker 1: To a degree. I mean, although we couldn't reach able
Speaker 1: as easily.
Speaker 3: It's very very true. So I guess they just went
Speaker 3: undone a lot of the time.
Speaker 1: So if you had a question in the dentist office,
Speaker 1: you were kind of stuck.
Speaker 3: That is very true.
Speaker 1: Unless the receptionist was going to call your mom, which
Speaker 1: seemed probably.
Speaker 3: A little talk. Then I know, no, they probably would.
Speaker 4: Honestly, they probably would be like, wait, why are you
Speaker 4: here without your mommy?
Speaker 3: You're only twenty Yeah.
Speaker 1: Exactly exactly. It does stretch out the growing up process
Speaker 1: a little bit. But you know you have to grow
Speaker 1: and change too. I think you talk a little bit
Speaker 1: in the book about rewriting some of that mom muscle memory. Yeah, right,
Speaker 1: Like there are various things you discover are have changed
Speaker 1: just because life has changed. I mean, even like going
Speaker 1: to the mall.
Speaker 4: Right, yeah, the example I gave of going to the
Speaker 4: mall was like something I thought was fun until my
Speaker 4: second child was like old enough to climb out of
Speaker 4: the stroller. And then by the time I had the third, no,
Speaker 4: thank you, I do not want to shop recreationally ever again.
Speaker 4: And so I didn't darken the doors of the mall
Speaker 4: for a really long time. And then a couple of
Speaker 4: years ago, when I just was down to two kids
Speaker 4: in the house and one was in driver's training and
Speaker 4: I was having to let him drive me about the
Speaker 4: countryside as it goes, he said, well, let's go to
Speaker 4: the mall. And I was like, oh, the mall. And
Speaker 4: then I thought, well, wait, this is great. I have
Speaker 4: two teenagers, they can just go do whatever. I can
Speaker 4: hang out in Barnes and Noble and get a pretzel.
Speaker 3: Nothing could be better.
Speaker 4: But in my mind I still had that like the
Speaker 4: back of my neck tensed up because I thought, oh,
Speaker 4: this is going to be awful. There's going to be
Speaker 4: you know, a three year old running around and bumping
Speaker 4: into the mannequins and feeling them up and stuff. And
Speaker 4: none of that happened because I don't have a three
Speaker 4: year old anymore. Dinner time, getting dinner on the table
Speaker 4: is not a hassle anymore. It's a pleasure now. And
Speaker 4: I've had to sort of rewire the way I approached
Speaker 4: things that once would have been really stressful or hard
Speaker 4: or impossible to say.
Speaker 3: Like, what's possible now? What's actually stressful?
Speaker 1: Now?
Speaker 4: Some of these things that I just think are stressful aren't.
Speaker 4: And yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: Although it's funny, I think about this with larger families
Speaker 1: and having a lot of kids, because your older two
Speaker 1: kids got to go to the mall, and now your
Speaker 1: younger two kids got to go to the mall. Number three,
Speaker 1: I guess just is at the parenting experience where there
Speaker 1: was no.
Speaker 4: Mall, no pictures, you know, poor kid. He also was
Speaker 4: my middle was at the time when digital photography was
Speaker 4: becoming in but it was awful.
Speaker 1: And yes, yes there's no pictures either. Pictures I have.
Speaker 3: So many photos of him.
Speaker 4: They're just lost of time, or they're just grainy, like
Speaker 4: pixelated junk on a hard drive somewhere.
Speaker 3: So yeah, they just get it, don't they, or they
Speaker 3: don't they.
Speaker 1: Do or they don't. Yeah, no, I know, I looked
Speaker 1: at it. We have a bunch of printed photos of
Speaker 1: my oldest because that was still when you were printing
Speaker 1: up photos. And then of course the youngest has had
Speaker 1: every day documented through you know iPhone that I still have, Yeah,
Speaker 1: my iCloud photos that I could look at tomorrow or
Speaker 1: today right in like two seconds. But yeah, the middle ones,
Speaker 1: it's sort.
Speaker 3: Of like, oh, you know, we're here, right, I do,
Speaker 3: we were here.
Speaker 1: I don't know the second one, in particular, there may
Speaker 1: be very few photos of the babyhood, so yeah, no
Speaker 1: reminding or even just how much stuff you buy in
Speaker 1: the grocery store, right, yeah, Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3: I was just thinking about this the other day.
Speaker 4: I went to Aldie and I was in and out
Speaker 4: in fifteen minutes, and I had an entire weeks with
Speaker 4: the groceries that fit in one bag. And even I
Speaker 4: think I mentioned this in the book, I even find
Speaker 4: myself eyeballing the half loaves of bread, which I once
Speaker 4: would have thought were like for senior citizens, you.
Speaker 3: Know, like people with low appetites.
Speaker 4: But now sometimes if I buy a whole loaf of
Speaker 4: bread or a gallon of milk, it just sits there
Speaker 4: and we really have to work hard to go through
Speaker 4: the food that escalated and de escalated so quickly. It
Speaker 4: was such a focus, and you're probably still really in
Speaker 4: that like high calorie consumption, like the peak getting a
Speaker 4: meal on the table, You're thinking mass, You're thinking what
Speaker 4: quantities can I get? How do I cook many things
Speaker 4: at once or batch? Because not because box and a
Speaker 4: half apostas, iast like no normal portions ever going to
Speaker 4: make it for your family, You're going to have to
Speaker 4: double or triple. I remember really coveting like a double
Speaker 4: wall of an plus arrange with the doublop, and I thought,
Speaker 4: if I could just do that, then I could have
Speaker 4: everything going at once that I could feed everyone. And
Speaker 4: now it's like, oh, I really don't have to think
Speaker 4: about food much at all. I'm kind of shifting to
Speaker 4: where I want to because it's fun because I had
Speaker 4: the time in the space to do it so differently
Speaker 4: than I did, and that's been hard too. Because I
Speaker 4: got a divorce eight years ago. So the year that
Speaker 4: I got divorced, my oldest was just graduated from high
Speaker 4: school and my youngest was seven. So suddenly the kids
Speaker 4: were going to their dads every other week, and so
Speaker 4: it was like every other week I still had to
Speaker 4: be super on and cook huge meals, but then the
Speaker 4: alternate week it was like me and leftovers from going
Speaker 4: out to the restaurant, and so then it was like okay,
Speaker 4: So finally got used to that, and then the kids
Speaker 4: started leaving. But then they came back, Laura, because it
Speaker 4: was COVID.
Speaker 3: They all came back. They all came back.
Speaker 1: It was like, I don't know what to do.
Speaker 4: I'm it's up, it's down, It's all over the place.
Speaker 4: Now I'm on a definite down words swing though, where
Speaker 4: you know, I'm coming into a busy time of my life.
Speaker 4: And I told my daughter the other day, Clara, I'm
Speaker 4: just gonna need you to just handle your own meals
Speaker 4: for a while. So I put a list on the
Speaker 4: instead of filling out the little meal thing that I
Speaker 4: still have on the fridge, even though I don't really
Speaker 4: need that anymore, kinds of comfort thing. It's like from
Speaker 4: that younger stage of motherhood. Instead of filling that out
Speaker 4: like I usually would, I just posted a little piece
Speaker 4: of paper on the fridge that just said ideas for you,
Speaker 4: because what I don't want is her coming to me and.
Speaker 3: Being like, let's see you for dinner.
Speaker 1: What should I make?
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 4: So I just have everything I think she can handle
Speaker 4: more or less on her own, and I'm just like,
Speaker 4: pick one, Just go pick one one.
Speaker 1: Yep, they can't feed them. So that's true. That's true. Well,
Speaker 1: we're going to take a quick ad break and I
Speaker 1: will be back with more from Megan Francis. Well, I
Speaker 1: am back talking with Megan Francis, who is the author
Speaker 1: of the new book, The Last Parenting Book You'll Ever
Speaker 1: read for many years, Megan, you've also been running a podcast, yeah,
Speaker 1: called The Mom Hour, and that is, you know, as
Speaker 1: we're reinventing ourselves and transitioning, that is transitioning as well.
Speaker 1: What's going on with that?
Speaker 4: Yeah, Well, sort of along the same lines of me
Speaker 4: not wanting to write another book about parenting at some point.
Speaker 4: Sarah and I have Sarah Powers as my co host.
Speaker 4: She lives in California. I live in Michigan. So we've
Speaker 4: been doing this long distance for a really long time,
Speaker 4: and I have more older kids than her, but the
Speaker 4: younger ones hers aren't that much further behind me.
Speaker 3: She's got her three or so into the roof.
Speaker 4: But teenagers an on their way onto whatever's next, and
Speaker 4: the two of us now are on our way to
Speaker 4: whatever's next. And I think what we kind of have
Speaker 4: been circling around for a while is it's not just
Speaker 4: that we don't want to make content that we would
Speaker 4: have ten years ago that would appeal to young mom
Speaker 4: of little kids. It's like, we can't. We don't have
Speaker 4: our fingers on that pulse anymore. I don't know what
Speaker 4: moms of new babies like, what strollers they're buying or what.
Speaker 4: I kind of keep an eye on it, but sort
Speaker 4: of in a in a way don't care anymore either,
Speaker 4: which is a good sign it's time to move on.
Speaker 4: So for a little while, the solution was sort of like, well,
Speaker 4: on the podcast, let's just talk about that, Let's talk
Speaker 4: about what this stage of parenting looks like, and talk
Speaker 4: about our teens as much as we're comfortable talk about
Speaker 4: how things are changing. And then you kind of run
Speaker 4: out of things to say about that. I mean, you know,
Speaker 4: as a podcaster sometimes you really have to dig deep
Speaker 4: to find something fresh to talk about. And I think
Speaker 4: where we finally wound up is someone had asked us
Speaker 4: if we would do a podcast episode about things we
Speaker 4: wish we had done differently with our teens, and I said,
Speaker 4: I can't do that episode because A if I told
Speaker 4: you the truth, then it would be very unhelpful, like
Speaker 4: it would actually probably make people feel really bad. But
Speaker 4: if I didn't tell the truth, I'd be lying, like
Speaker 4: it wouldn't be real. And if I didn't tell you everything,
Speaker 4: it would gloss over the hard stuff. So much about
Speaker 4: parenting teenagers and then the shifting relationship into young adulthood
Speaker 4: is not really about me or what I did or
Speaker 4: didn't do, so there's no advice to give. Like I
Speaker 4: did it, It's done, and do I wish I would
Speaker 4: have done some things different, Sure, but I couldn't have
Speaker 4: told you then what those things were. And some are
Speaker 4: very surprising even to me now. And it's my kid's story,
Speaker 4: so don't want to talk about it. And so I
Speaker 4: think we finally came to a stage where we thought
Speaker 4: it's just time to bring that to an end. So
Speaker 4: that podcast is ten years old, turned ten last month
Speaker 4: actually in March, and now we're going to be winding
Speaker 4: it down and so at the end of June, which
Speaker 4: kind of coincides with my book which is out in May,
Speaker 4: it's going to be done, like we're ceasing publication. You'll
Speaker 4: still be able to find the archives. We have hundreds
Speaker 4: and hundreds of episodes, so that'll still be there indefinitely.
Speaker 3: But we just wanted to put kind.
Speaker 4: Of a clean cap on that and it, yeah, called
Speaker 4: the mom Our. There's not really a lot of other
Speaker 4: places we.
Speaker 1: Could go with.
Speaker 4: It's not the kind of thing where we could just
Speaker 4: shift our focus. So we're starting a brand new podcast
Speaker 4: called Midlife Lady Leisure Pursuits and that is going to
Speaker 4: be all about the things that we like to do
Speaker 4: as middle aged ladies.
Speaker 1: Awesome, and we're going to talk about that in a minute.
Speaker 1: Good But I'm yeah, I'm kind of curious about this
Speaker 1: because of course Sarah and I are thinking about this too.
Speaker 1: Our youngest children are five and seven, so we still
Speaker 1: have a fair we're still relevant, so fastic. Well yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, but this is the thing, I mean, and
Speaker 1: certain we don't have babies or toddlers anymore, and a
Speaker 1: lot of people find us they are like, it's recommended
Speaker 1: that they listen to our show as they are going
Speaker 1: back to work after maternity. Yes, right, And so we've
Speaker 1: been pounder it like how do we keep serving up
Speaker 1: relevant content for people in that stage of life?
Speaker 4: So I don't know, yeah, and I think with something
Speaker 4: like best of both worlds, like there is a place
Speaker 4: to take that into any stage that you're in. But
Speaker 4: you're right, it's tricky when people find you, like on
Speaker 4: a specific topic and that episode. We've had people email
Speaker 4: us before and say, hey, I'm looking for this resource
Speaker 4: or something you mentioned in episode one hundred and we're like,
Speaker 4: I mean, we forgot about that episode seven years ago.
Speaker 4: I don't even remember of the episode we recorded two
Speaker 4: weeks ago, let alone that long ago. But people don't
Speaker 4: know exactly where you are, and then they realize.
Speaker 3: Oh, this is really old content. It is really a
Speaker 3: tricky thing.
Speaker 4: And sometimes I think a rebrand isn't necessary, but sometimes
Speaker 4: it's helpful to like put a container around the thing
Speaker 4: that was and start a brand new thing that can
Speaker 4: be what you want us to be.
Speaker 1: So interesting, just something to think about, something to think
Speaker 1: about or maybe we just have frequent guests with young
Speaker 1: kids or figure that or that or that. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: you know, you've also been reinventing yourself. I mean we
Speaker 1: mentioned you got remarried, yeah, in twenty twenty three. I'm
Speaker 1: very curious how being a midlife newlyywed is different from
Speaker 1: being I mean, you were what like twenty.
Speaker 3: The first Yeah, Oh my gosh.
Speaker 4: Well, first of all, we're so much smarter when I
Speaker 4: got married the first time around. And I think that's
Speaker 4: true whether you get married for the first time when
Speaker 4: you're twenty or thirty or you know, and wherever. I
Speaker 4: just think there's so much you don't know about what
Speaker 4: marriage is, and now we know those things. I think
Speaker 4: the thing that has been most interesting that I didn't
Speaker 4: really see coming as a challenge is that I got
Speaker 4: really used to being alone, like living singly as a
Speaker 4: grown up, a straight up grown up with grown children.
Speaker 3: I got really used to that.
Speaker 4: I got used to making all my own decisions about
Speaker 4: how I was going to spend my money, or what
Speaker 4: TV show I was going to watch or not watch,
Speaker 4: like how I was going to decorate the living room,
Speaker 4: whatever it was. It was all mine to decide for
Speaker 4: kind of a long time. I was single for gosh,
Speaker 4: I don't know I was. He and I have been
Speaker 4: together for five years, but we just got married two
Speaker 4: years ago, and I was divorced. I was probably like
Speaker 4: totally on my own for six is years, and that
Speaker 4: was just enough time to kind of dig in. So
Speaker 4: another nice thing, though, is it's really fun because we're
Speaker 4: on the other side of all that family building, life building,
Speaker 4: career building.
Speaker 3: We're coasting now.
Speaker 4: We're not doing all that hardcore career building anymore. We're
Speaker 4: not we're not raising a young family. So we have
Speaker 4: a lot of leisure time and we have a lot
Speaker 4: of time to just say, Okay, here's what we've done,
Speaker 4: here's what we've built. Now what like, what does this
Speaker 4: next stage of our lives look like? And we get
Speaker 4: to do it together without that baggage from the past,
Speaker 4: which is really nice and very lovely. So it's been
Speaker 4: mostly mostly really positive, with a few times of me going,
Speaker 4: oh my gosh, I need some space, like where do
Speaker 4: I go?
Speaker 3: I got a room of my own?
Speaker 1: Well, and you get to try out the grandma life, right.
Speaker 3: Actually, yes, I have.
Speaker 4: So by the time Eric and I got married, his
Speaker 4: son oldest son. He's got a son and a daughter.
Speaker 4: The oldest had been remarried and then they had a baby,
Speaker 4: like a few months after we got married. So I
Speaker 4: get to be a grandma, which is I was not
Speaker 4: ready for that.
Speaker 3: And now it could be like any of my older
Speaker 3: kids could procreate at any moment.
Speaker 1: I mean, could happen.
Speaker 3: That would be surprising to me right now, but it
Speaker 3: could happen.
Speaker 1: It could happen.
Speaker 4: But I just didn't see it coming quite so. Like
Speaker 4: it was like a few months, you know, it was like, oh,
Speaker 4: here I am marrying into this family where there's already
Speaker 4: this baby on the way, and it's been lovely, Like
Speaker 4: being at Grandma's kind of the best. It's actually, I
Speaker 4: think being in a blended family the grandma that's not
Speaker 4: the biological ties even better because I just get to
Speaker 4: truly show up and play with the baby. But I
Speaker 4: have no baggage, Like however they raise this baby.
Speaker 1: It has nothing to do with you, to do with me.
Speaker 4: It's not reflective of anything I did. It doesn't feel
Speaker 4: like a rejection of my parenting. And I actually kind
Speaker 4: of jive with a lot of what they're doing anyway,
Speaker 4: which is great.
Speaker 3: But even if I didn't, I'd be like, eh, whatever,
Speaker 3: it's their life, so do they do that.
Speaker 4: They do them, and I just get to show up
Speaker 4: and play and it's lovely. Oh my gosh, she's talking now.
Speaker 4: We decided he's going to call me Meme because I
Speaker 4: kind of wanted a cute grandma name. And yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: he's already got two grandma's and two grandpa's, so it's like,
Speaker 4: all right, well, who can I be this a little
Speaker 4: bit different?
Speaker 3: And I just decided.
Speaker 4: I looked it up and it said it's a fun,
Speaker 4: loving and sessey grandma name or something, and I thought, oh,
Speaker 4: I like that, Let's just do it.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'll go for there. Maybe that'll be my grandma name. Someday.
Speaker 1: We'll see to think about that.
Speaker 4: But you have some on ramp because they don't come
Speaker 4: out talking, so you don't have.
Speaker 3: To worry about it for a little bit.
Speaker 1: To worry about that later. Yeah. All right, Well, we're
Speaker 1: gonna take one more quick ad break and then I'll
Speaker 1: be back with more from Megan Francis. Well, I am
Speaker 1: back talking with Megan Francis, who is the author of
Speaker 1: the brand new book The Last Parenting Book You'll Ever Read.
Speaker 1: She's been talking about transitioning The Mom Hour out to
Speaker 1: ending publication of that and launching her new podcast about
Speaker 1: mid life Lady Pursuit. So I want to talk about
Speaker 1: midlife lady pursuits. I think you have a phrase in
Speaker 1: the book that creativity is the new fertility. Yes, what
Speaker 1: is a midlife lady pleisure pursuit? How is this?
Speaker 4: Well, here's the thing, Sarah and I my co host Sarah,
Speaker 4: we have a theory that in their forties, you know,
Speaker 4: unless they have like a newborn in their forties, in
Speaker 4: that case, you're probably pushing it off.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, we had that for it. Yes, well, my
Speaker 1: midlife lady pleleisher pursuits are gonna be a little bit lurterer.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: So at some point in midlife, all women either take
Speaker 4: up yoga, start getting puppies, like fancy puppies, I chicken chickens.
Speaker 3: I've got those two.
Speaker 4: They get really into something, right, they garden, We could
Speaker 4: think of the watercolor painting whatever. We could think of
Speaker 4: a million stereotypes and they're kind of true. And a
Speaker 4: lot of that is because we now have our hands free,
Speaker 4: we have the ability to dabble again. All of that
Speaker 4: heart not that we're not still career building, but it
Speaker 4: doesn't have that say, I don't know. I can't speak
Speaker 4: for you, Laura, but for me, the energy I had
Speaker 4: behind building a career, say twenty years ago or even
Speaker 4: ten years ago, it's a very different energy now, I
Speaker 4: would say now it's more like a sustained yet like
Speaker 4: restrained energy. Maybe that's the right way to put it,
Speaker 4: Like I'm going to try this. I'm going to see
Speaker 4: if it works. If it doesn't, great, I still want.
Speaker 3: To be productive. I still want to be doing things.
Speaker 4: I love to work, but I don't feel that burn
Speaker 4: to make a mark anymore that I once did. And
Speaker 4: so it's lovely. It opens up a lot of mental
Speaker 4: space and the ability to kind of take a step
Speaker 4: back and say, like, how do I want to spend
Speaker 4: the next two three four decades of my life? What
Speaker 4: do I want to try that I haven't gotten around to,
Speaker 4: Maybe because my kids were too little, Maybe because I
Speaker 4: thought it was sort of frivolous and dumb, and like,
Speaker 4: why there's so much talk right now about nervous systems.
Speaker 4: I'm not a wellness buru. I don't know, but I
Speaker 4: do sometimes look back and think, Man, I put my
Speaker 4: nervous system through a lot when I had so many
Speaker 4: little kids, and I was trying to do so much,
Speaker 4: so intensely, and I just don't want to.
Speaker 3: Do that right now. I want some leisure pursuits.
Speaker 4: So for me that yes, I have chickens, and I
Speaker 4: talk to my chickens and I call them my little babies.
Speaker 3: And I don't cuddle them. They're not cuddle chickens. Sit
Speaker 3: in pan.
Speaker 4: They didn't touch them in lovely chickens. No, I didn't
Speaker 4: touch them enough when they were babies. But that, for me,
Speaker 4: is a leisure pursuit. Writing in some ways, even though
Speaker 4: it's been a career for so long, can become a
Speaker 4: leisure pursuit if I come at it with that mindset.
Speaker 4: I took up embroidery. I love embroidering, like using my hands.
Speaker 4: I'm making sour dough bread, I make yogurt and cheese.
Speaker 1: I feel like I know it's all one baby cliche.
Speaker 4: I know I am the cliche. But cliches are there
Speaker 4: for a reason.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: Well, let's say somebody doesn't know what part of the
Speaker 1: cliche they want to be. Yah, how does one go
Speaker 1: about figuring this out?
Speaker 4: I think you have to just try things on. And
Speaker 4: for me, it really felt like going back to before
Speaker 4: I had kids. And sometimes it's hard before you were
Speaker 4: a teenager too, because teenager kind of throws you into
Speaker 4: a you're not quite yourself, you know what I mean?
Speaker 4: Like during that time of life, for me, it was
Speaker 4: like going back to being eight years old and thinking
Speaker 4: what gave me pleasure? What was I fascinated by. I
Speaker 4: remember my mom had all these embroidered pillowcases and I
Speaker 4: would just run my finger along the embroidery, and I
Speaker 4: was so fascinated. I was never quite as fascinated by
Speaker 4: the way with knitted things, which probably explains why knitting
Speaker 4: I'm like, eh, you know, I'd like to take it
Speaker 4: up at some point just to see if I could
Speaker 4: do it. But I wasn't, as I guess, enamored with
Speaker 4: that as I was decorative stitches. And so what does
Speaker 4: that tell me about how I might want to spend
Speaker 4: my time now? Same thing with when I used to
Speaker 4: make art. Before I thought I was bad at making art.
Speaker 4: I used to love to paint and put paint on paper,
Speaker 4: and then I got the idea, wasn't any good at it?
Speaker 1: Now?
Speaker 3: Was I good at it?
Speaker 4: No? I'm not good at it, but it doesn't matter.
Speaker 4: I'm not doing it to be good at it. I'm
Speaker 4: not trying to build a side hustle. It's just leisure.
Speaker 4: It's a way to use my hands and chill my
Speaker 4: brain out a little bit and create in a way
Speaker 4: that doesn't have a lot of strings attached.
Speaker 1: Yeah, when you shift to this moment of trying to
Speaker 1: fill time, yeah, as opposed to constantly grasping.
Speaker 4: At Absolutely there is something to that idea of like, wow,
Speaker 4: I have time, and I could stare at a screen,
Speaker 4: or I could try to cook up another business idea,
Speaker 4: which I'm too good at.
Speaker 3: I need less of that in my life sometimes.
Speaker 4: Or you know, I could just sit here and like
Speaker 4: while away an hour just because I want to, just
Speaker 4: because I could just be. And that was a hard
Speaker 4: place for me to get to, you know, as a
Speaker 4: mom of many, many kids and doing all these other things,
Speaker 4: and especially working from home, Like you don't look at
Speaker 4: time as something that is abundant. Often you look at
Speaker 4: it as things you break down into small chunks. I
Speaker 4: remember when I had lists all over my office of
Speaker 4: things I could do in five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes,
Speaker 4: because then if I found myself with five minutes, I'd
Speaker 4: be like, ooh, what can I do?
Speaker 3: Okay, jump into that.
Speaker 4: Now I've already used up ten seconds, so I've only
Speaker 4: got four minutes and fifty seconds now. I don't have
Speaker 4: to think like that really hardly ever, And it's quite lovely.
Speaker 1: Actually, it's a different world entirely exactly exactly. Although I've
Speaker 1: been pondering with figuring out how to incorporate older children
Speaker 1: into things right like that, It'd be great if somebody
Speaker 1: wanted to travel with you, but you don't know that
Speaker 1: they'd be available. I mean, I guess you just have
Speaker 1: to be a little bit more flexible with the planning
Speaker 1: on things like that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I actually was just thinking about that because I
Speaker 4: feel like with my older sons, not my oldest, but
Speaker 4: my second and third, I feel like I sort of
Speaker 4: missed a window. There was a lot of chaos happening
Speaker 4: when they were of the age where we might have
Speaker 4: gotten some time to do things like that. And I think, gosh,
Speaker 4: it would be really nice to go someplace with them individually,
Speaker 4: each each kid, and get that alone time that I
Speaker 4: really didn't get. But they're going to have to kind
Speaker 4: of direct that I think, and that's hard. Like I
Speaker 4: would like to say, hey, let's pick a week and
Speaker 4: let's do this in this and they've got their own
Speaker 4: they're doing the young twenties thing, and that might not
Speaker 4: work with their work schedule or their school schedule, or
Speaker 4: their life or their girlfriends or whatever, like whatever they're doing.
Speaker 4: So I think I have to kind of hold on
Speaker 4: to those goals. I once like those ideals just with
Speaker 4: a loose script because some of them might not happen.
Speaker 4: And when you're the manager of your home, it's up
Speaker 4: to you if it happens, and you're good at making
Speaker 4: stuff happen, Laura, So like it's really hard to let
Speaker 4: go when you're like, now it's I can't make them
Speaker 4: show up for this. I can't make them care. They
Speaker 4: don't live here anymore, so they get to decide, and
Speaker 4: that is emotionally. That's been a little bit tough for
Speaker 4: me at the holidays, especially like that every Christmas for
Speaker 4: the last three or four years, I've thought, is this
Speaker 4: it is this the last one where we all show
Speaker 4: up because next year someone might be in a different
Speaker 4: country or have a significant other and decide they don't
Speaker 4: want to come home.
Speaker 3: And any Christmas.
Speaker 1: It could be any Christmas, it could be one anyone
Speaker 1: exactly exactly. Well, so Megan, we always end with a
Speaker 1: love of the week. Okay, So I mean I could
Speaker 1: go first, Well, what I would say? I really like
Speaker 1: the small world of writing? Because guys, I got it.
Speaker 1: You know. I have an advanced copy of Megan's book
Speaker 1: and the three blurbs on the cover are like all
Speaker 1: from friends with mine and I'm like, hey, I like
Speaker 1: we could. We should have a party for all these people.
Speaker 3: Let's do it.
Speaker 1: I like that idea. How about you? What's good for
Speaker 1: you this week?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 4: I have to tell you I have been using my
Speaker 4: library a lot lately, and we're recording this a little
Speaker 4: bit ahead of time, and I actually just wrote a
Speaker 4: blog post about how much I love my library, so
Speaker 4: I'm kind of in that mental mode. But one of
Speaker 4: the reasons I love it is that I decided that
Speaker 4: I'm gonna have a different attitude about paying fines. I
Speaker 4: am now going to pay my library fine with a
Speaker 4: smile on my face because they support the library, and
Speaker 4: it's like a rental. It's like, I like this book
Speaker 4: so much I couldn't return it in time. So there
Speaker 4: you go, Yes, there you go.
Speaker 1: They're usually not too terrible in terms.
Speaker 3: Of well, I mean there have been times that might
Speaker 3: have gotten since like.
Speaker 1: Nineteen eighty yeah yeah yeah, or.
Speaker 4: You have a whole bunch of kids at home who've
Speaker 4: hoarded books and then you lost til I've been there,
Speaker 4: but I'm not there anymore.
Speaker 3: Different stage of life.
Speaker 1: So different stage okay, good good, I love it. Well.
Speaker 1: The library it's a good midlife lady pursuer as well.
Speaker 1: It's spending time there. I love my library as well well. Meggan,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us. Where can people
Speaker 1: find you? So?
Speaker 4: The best place to find me probably these days is substack.
Speaker 4: I'm really not doing social media hardly at all right now.
Speaker 4: I mean I'm doing a little bit more for the
Speaker 4: book launch because you kind of have to, but you
Speaker 4: have to.
Speaker 3: I'm not there very much.
Speaker 4: So if you want to find me, I have a
Speaker 4: podcast and a substack, like a written substack. It's at
Speaker 4: Meganfrancis dot substack dot com. And that's Megan with two
Speaker 4: a's M E A T G A N not the first.
Speaker 4: There is an e in there too, right right, Megan? No,
Speaker 4: actually I do again, I too think that is one
Speaker 4: of the many spellings of Megan, but mine's m e
Speaker 4: ah g A nh N.
Speaker 1: Got it, got it all right, Megan, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for joining us.
Speaker 3: Thanks Laura, this has been fun.
Speaker 2: All right, we are back always fun hearing from Megan.
Speaker 2: So our question comes from a listener who would like
Speaker 2: to know what life skills should kids know as they
Speaker 2: head off for college. Laura, is that something you've started
Speaker 2: to think about?
Speaker 1: I definitely have. There's been a couple of fascinating books
Speaker 1: about this over the last few years, about you know,
Speaker 1: adulting and sort of the skills somebody life skills people need,
Speaker 1: and I think all of those are probably good to
Speaker 1: like look through, because there's definite blind spots for anything.
Speaker 1: I mean, just like life things you don't know, like
Speaker 1: that you should have some cash in a hotel to
Speaker 1: leave as a tip in the room, like good people
Speaker 1: know that. I don't know. That's not the kind of
Speaker 1: thing that like, you know, spring from the womb knowing,
Speaker 1: and especially in our world where we people don't even
Speaker 1: use that much cash anymore, it's the kind of thing
Speaker 1: that somebody wouldn't think about. So I, you know, was
Speaker 1: sending my boys off to a competition where they were
Speaker 1: staying in a hotel rooms. I was like thinking about that.
Speaker 1: I like, oh, yeah, usually I should take this because
Speaker 1: that's an expectation. But we're probably like, okay, basic laundry, right,
Speaker 1: doing your own laundry, I think in such a way
Speaker 1: that it will not ruin your clothes. So I guess
Speaker 1: the basic skills involved in that. Some cooking. I mean,
Speaker 1: even if people are mostly in a cafeteria for the
Speaker 1: first year or two, it might be helpful at least know,
Speaker 1: like you know that down the dorm kitchen, like you
Speaker 1: can make yourself some mac and chooes if you want.
Speaker 1: But also basic nutrition, like that you can't just eat
Speaker 1: cereal from the cafeteria and expect it to work. I
Speaker 1: mean maybe maybe for some people, or you're gonna wind
Speaker 1: up like with scurvy or something.
Speaker 2: I think Josh talked about how like he used to
Speaker 2: live on just like spaghetti, sauce and spaghetti, like no protein,
Speaker 2: no nothing. I'm like, after a certain point, you just
Speaker 2: start to not feel good.
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, one would think I mean that you're
Speaker 1: like digesticist. I assure people have like horrible you know,
Speaker 1: constipation or something. Eventually you learn you learn, but hopefully
Speaker 1: they don't always have to learn through harsh trial and error.
Speaker 1: Let's see what else, Okay, basic planning and scheduling, I mean, Sarah,
Speaker 1: maybe this is something we should put together, like basic
Speaker 1: young adult how to schedule your life kind of thing.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that would actually be really fun to put together,
Speaker 2: like planning for I mean, Annabelle has talked about having
Speaker 2: her own plan podcasts. I don't know where is she
Speaker 2: going to come up with that.
Speaker 1: Idea, but yeah, who knows.
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, I do feel like some basics are needed,
Speaker 2: although I think as these productivity techniques kind of enter
Speaker 2: like the social media's like guyst maybe they've been exposed
Speaker 2: to more of them, like I feel like TikTok and
Speaker 2: god knows what. But you're right some of them probably
Speaker 2: have blind spots there. And you mentioned financial I could
Speaker 2: use that big time when I headed to college.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, even if you plan to be paying most
Speaker 1: of the bills for a kid in their first few years,
Speaker 1: but there's probably some amount that you're planning on providing them,
Speaker 1: like per month or per week or whatever it is,
Speaker 1: and so then they need to think about how to
Speaker 1: make that cover the things that they will have, you
Speaker 1: know that, Like if I'm going to need to buy
Speaker 1: both books and food out of this, maybe I shouldn't
Speaker 1: like go out for a huge dinner like right after
Speaker 1: getting it. If my parents are not like incredibly amenable
Speaker 1: to the idea of like giving me more just because
Speaker 1: I ran through it, So that would be something to
Speaker 1: talk about. It's even just like how to pay right,
Speaker 1: like the mechanics of paying at a restaurant, paying for
Speaker 1: gas in a car, paying for bus fairs, for instance,
Speaker 1: Like there's often ways to think that. You know, they're
Speaker 1: smart kids. Obviously they'll probably figure it out, but it
Speaker 1: might help to have a little bit of discussion on it.
Speaker 1: And then basic health like Sarah used send kids who
Speaker 1: often have chronic conditions off on their own, Like how
Speaker 1: do you even approach that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, we definitely like make a point to discuss that.
Speaker 2: Like I feel like I have a whole like going
Speaker 2: to college speech for my type one diabetes patients because
Speaker 2: it's like, you need to have your supplies, this is
Speaker 2: what alcohol will do to you, and this is how
Speaker 2: to be safe and like all kinds of stuff, and
Speaker 2: I think it's, yeah, it's important for teens to have
Speaker 2: a plan of like how to access their medical record
Speaker 2: and be connected to the like online portals so that
Speaker 2: they could contact their doctor for something, or to make
Speaker 2: sure they're sharing the access with their parents now that
Speaker 2: they're not a minor, to know how they're going to
Speaker 2: be getting their prescriptions up in college. Do you know
Speaker 2: what to do in an emergency or like what an emergency?
Speaker 1: Actually it is an emergency?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, Like you want to teach them about what
Speaker 2: men and you don't want to scare them, but like, okay,
Speaker 2: bad neck pain and high fever, like you go to.
Speaker 1: The er, but even that you have a fever, Like
Speaker 1: how do they know that they have a fever? Right? Like?
Speaker 1: How many kids are walking around with a thermometer? So
Speaker 1: you have to like say, do you have a thermometer
Speaker 1: like a first aid kit or something with you like
Speaker 1: that that might be something to check. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: not sure that my kids have ever on their own
Speaker 1: taken their temperature, so totally. Yeah, many life skills to concern.
Speaker 1: So anyway, we're really in this with you right now.
Speaker 1: We're figuring though, So if listeners who do have older
Speaker 1: children who have launched children have anything to add to
Speaker 1: this list, please send it to us, we will share
Speaker 1: it as well. But yeah, so we've been talking with
Speaker 1: Megan Francis on the last parenting book You'll ever read.
Speaker 1: We will be back next week with more on making
Speaker 1: work and life fit together.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the
Speaker 2: shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram,
Speaker 2: and you can.
Speaker 1: Find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This has
Speaker 1: been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please join us
Speaker 1: next time for more on making work and life work together.