Speaker 1: Hi.
Speaker 2: I'm Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist,
Speaker 2: and speaker.
Speaker 3: And I'm Sarah hart Hunger, a mother of three, practicing physician, writer,
Speaker 3: and course creator. We are two working parents who love
Speaker 3: our careers and our families.
Speaker 2: Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about
Speaker 2: how real women manage work, family, and time for fun,
Speaker 2: from figuring out childcare to mapping out long.
Speaker 1: Term career goals.
Speaker 2: We want you to get the most out of life.
Speaker 1: Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura.
Speaker 2: This episode is airing in late April of twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2: Sarah is going to be interviewing another Sarah, Sarah Armstrong,
Speaker 2: who is a global marketing leader and author. She's the
Speaker 2: author of a book called The Art of the Juggling
Speaker 2: Act and she is also the author of a slightly
Speaker 2: older book called The Mom's Guide to a Good Divorce,
Speaker 2: and that is a topic that Sarah and she will
Speaker 2: be talking about in the course of this interview. And
Speaker 2: divorce is a topic we've actually had people request an
Speaker 2: episode on, and it's something we have not had close
Speaker 2: experience with obviously, and so we wanted to make sure
Speaker 2: that we could address that topic, and I know a
Speaker 2: number of listeners have dealt with in a way that
Speaker 2: would hopefully offer some strategies, some ways to think about
Speaker 2: that are practical for navigating something complex like that. So, yeah, Sarah,
Speaker 2: I mean, it does seem like people are potentially more
Speaker 2: willing to talk about such things now than in the past. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I was just thinking about it. I've definitely seen a
Speaker 2: lot of divorce related content out there recently, and I
Speaker 2: feel like other topics that previously just weren't talked about
Speaker 2: very much include things like metopause therapy and mental health issues,
Speaker 2: choosing to drink less alcohol or issues with alcohol, and
Speaker 2: then even like choices around personal finance.
Speaker 3: I feel like just people are just getting a little
Speaker 3: more open about various things.
Speaker 1: Probably some ups and to that.
Speaker 2: You know, I see some things on social media I'm like, well,
Speaker 2: I'm really glad that I am not a family member
Speaker 2: of that person sharing, you know that the because it's
Speaker 2: something that involves the whole family, and so whether you
Speaker 2: want it to be or not, perhaps it's a child
Speaker 2: of somebody who's sharing broadly on social media, you will
Speaker 2: wind up having it be known. But there's definitely a
Speaker 2: little bit more openness about a lot of things, and
Speaker 2: certainly with something like divorce being as common as it is,
Speaker 2: and people navigating life with like kids having two households
Speaker 2: and the logistics of co parenting and working things out
Speaker 2: with somebody that you are you know, no longer married to,
Speaker 2: or dealing with step parents, and all that I mean
Speaker 2: is there's so many logistics when their family is involved.
Speaker 2: So it's good that people are out there talking about
Speaker 2: their strategies.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think it can be an area
Speaker 3: where someone might feel alone, and yet it's so common.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's same with all those things I just mentioned,
Speaker 3: like menopause, right, like you feel like you're the only one.
Speaker 3: But nowadays when it's people are talking about it more,
Speaker 3: I think there is solace and like, okay, other people
Speaker 3: have gotten through it, what has worked, what hasn't worked,
Speaker 3: And also there's a camaraderie there, like I'm not by myself.
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
Speaker 3: Well, let's hear what Sarah Armstrong has to say about
Speaker 3: this topic. Well, I am so excited to welcome Sarah
Speaker 3: Armstrong to Best of both worlds.
Speaker 1: Sarah is an.
Speaker 3: Author, a global marketing leader, and a mother, so she
Speaker 3: is a perfect fit for our show, and I'm so
Speaker 3: excited to have you on, Sarah to talk all things
Speaker 3: divorce and then also to talk a little bit about
Speaker 3: your newest work on the Juggling Act.
Speaker 4: Oh great to be with you, Sarah, Really excited to
Speaker 4: be here today.
Speaker 3: This episode is partly inspired by a listener who wrote
Speaker 3: in with a question about talking to friends or like,
Speaker 3: how friends could support another friend getting divorced, and Laura
Speaker 3: and I tried to answer this, but we didn't do
Speaker 3: a great job. Honestly, I don't think we did, and
Speaker 3: we got some feedback which was we like that you tried,
Speaker 3: but could you have some experts on the show to
Speaker 3: really talk about how to navigate this tricky territory well,
Speaker 3: since it's so common and so needed the support in
Speaker 3: this area. So you were perfect, Sarah. You've written a
Speaker 3: book called The Mom's Guide to a Good Divorce. Can
Speaker 3: you give us a little bit of your good divorce
Speaker 3: story before we get started?
Speaker 4: Sure? Sure? You know what I like to start with, though,
Speaker 4: is you know, just for the record, I'm actually not
Speaker 4: an advocate for divorce, and an ideal world, couples that
Speaker 4: get married would stay happily married for the long term,
Speaker 4: but Unfortunately, as you mentioned, this is more common than ever,
Speaker 4: it's not always the case that that's what happens. And
Speaker 4: so one of the things that I want reflect on
Speaker 4: with the topic of divorce is that no one gets
Speaker 4: married to get divorced, right, It's not like you plan
Speaker 4: that You're like, oh, okay, when I get married, and then
Speaker 4: I get divorced. And no one gets divorced for positive reasons.
Speaker 4: There's usually something that's triggered a divorce. But children who
Speaker 4: are part of a family that goes for divorce don't
Speaker 4: get to make the decision that their parents are going
Speaker 4: to get divorced in their lives are the most significantly
Speaker 4: impacted by this decision. So for my own journey is
Speaker 4: I was actually my daughter Grace, who's now twenty two
Speaker 4: in Fairna. She's graduating from college this year. But when
Speaker 4: she was seven years old, we went through a divorce,
Speaker 4: and so she was in first grade and I was
Speaker 4: the first of my friends to go through divorce, and
Speaker 4: she was the first of her classmates and little friends
Speaker 4: in the neighborhood to go through it as well. So
Speaker 4: one of the things as we went through a divorce
Speaker 4: and I grew up with a very happily married couple
Speaker 4: as my parents. They've been married fifty seven years this year,
Speaker 4: so I know which is amazing and just they are
Speaker 4: the true picture of partnership. And so I had a
Speaker 4: picture in mind of what marriage looked like. But I
Speaker 4: had also seen really ugly divorces growing up. Some of
Speaker 4: my parents' friends had gone through divorces that really stuck
Speaker 4: with me. And so when we got to the point
Speaker 4: where my ex husband and I decided that we were
Speaker 4: no longer going to be together, I had said to him,
Speaker 4: I have to believe there's a better way to do
Speaker 4: it than what I watched growing up. And I don't
Speaker 4: want Grace to be collateral damage in this divorce. That
Speaker 4: was the whole thing, like what do we do so
Speaker 4: she is not cloudbal damage. So we took a very
Speaker 4: conscious approach to our divorce process. And then what was
Speaker 4: interesting is over the years after a divorce, I had
Speaker 4: a number of girlfriends that would come to me and
Speaker 4: they had made the decision to go down that path.
Speaker 4: And I joke that the girl who never ever thought
Speaker 4: she would get a divorce became the poster child for
Speaker 4: a good divorce. And so my friends were asking me
Speaker 4: for guidance, and so I'd sit down with them over
Speaker 4: a glass of wine in my living room and we'd
Speaker 4: talk through things, and at the end of each of
Speaker 4: their respective journeys, they'd say to me, you should really
Speaker 4: write this stuff down. And I said, well, I'm not
Speaker 4: a writer and I don't really think I'm ever going
Speaker 4: to do that, but okay. But what happened was I
Speaker 4: was actually at a business dinner in Mexico City number
Speaker 4: of years ago, and I sat next to a colleague
Speaker 4: and friend of mine and he looked at me and
Speaker 4: he said, Sarah, you're so happy, and I said, well, yeah,
Speaker 4: I'm really happy. He goes, but you're divorced, and I said, well,
Speaker 4: getting divorce is not a death sentence. I said, I'm happy,
Speaker 4: Grace is happy, Max husband's happy. I'm like, you can
Speaker 4: be happy and be divorced. That those two are not
Speaker 4: something that can't be in the same sense. And so
Speaker 4: I just think in our society there's not enough conversation
Speaker 4: about the topic of how to have a good divorce, Like,
Speaker 4: if you're going to go through on this process, go
Speaker 4: through the process and go down this path, why can't
Speaker 4: it be that the end of it you're happy, your
Speaker 4: children are happy, your expouse is happy. You can have
Speaker 4: a healthy relationship with your expouse regardless of what triggered
Speaker 4: the divorce, because so again, there's always going to be
Speaker 4: a trigger. So I would really love to help kind
Speaker 4: of shift that societal perception that a good divorce isn't attainable.
Speaker 3: Walk that makes so much sense. I mean, nobody goes
Speaker 3: into the idea of having a big change in their
Speaker 3: life if they weren't trying to be happier.
Speaker 4: Well, and you know what, that's the funny thing that's there.
Speaker 4: I've had someone say to me that I make divorce
Speaker 4: look too good, and I've said, and anytime I mean
Speaker 4: that is said to me, I said, I'm just trying
Speaker 4: to be happy. You know, at the end of the day,
Speaker 4: that's what this is about. You're right, And so if
Speaker 4: you can't have that as a goal at the end
Speaker 4: of this, then you know, are you doing it so
Speaker 4: that you're not happy? That's you know, that doesn't make
Speaker 4: any sense. So you're right, that is a goal with
Speaker 4: any major change. But it is interesting how people perceive
Speaker 4: divorce in the fact that because that is the action
Speaker 4: you've gone through, and that's why I say it is
Speaker 4: an action getting divorced. Action you get divorced. It does
Speaker 4: not need to be a scarlet letter that you and
Speaker 4: your children carry around with you for the rest of
Speaker 4: your lives.
Speaker 3: That makes sense, and it's an active choice.
Speaker 4: It is an active choice, absolutely.
Speaker 3: So going back and you break the idea of a
Speaker 3: divorce into multiple phases, and maybe you can talk a
Speaker 3: little bit about your phases and then also the tips
Speaker 3: you kind of have for each of these phases. But
Speaker 3: you talk about preparing for the divorce. I don't know
Speaker 3: if part of that is also like the decision, Yes,
Speaker 3: the during the actual change and then post change and
Speaker 3: the year of first that ensues once you've made this
Speaker 3: big change in your life. Yes, beginning with the pre period.
Speaker 3: Can you talk a little bit about your experience and
Speaker 3: then kind of your biggest tips for that phase.
Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, So I think you know, when you're preparing
Speaker 4: for divorce or you're potentially considering it, one of the
Speaker 4: things that I think is most important is your mindset.
Speaker 4: And it goes back to what I just said that
Speaker 4: your mindset is essential. That you're going into this with
Speaker 4: putting your children first every step of the way, and
Speaker 4: that is sometimes one of the hardest things there for
Speaker 4: people to do, because emotions run so high during a
Speaker 4: divorce that sometimes the kids get lost, quite nicely, get
Speaker 4: lost in the shuffle. And one of the things I've
Speaker 4: reflected on over the years is when you are a
Speaker 4: couple and you've decided to no longer be married, you've
Speaker 4: made that decision, and that's fine. But your children when
Speaker 4: they're in that situation with you and I say that,
Speaker 4: we put bike helmets on them, and we feed them
Speaker 4: organic milk, and we do all these things to make
Speaker 4: them healthy and happy. But if you put them in
Speaker 4: a what I consider a toxic situation and you're not
Speaker 4: clear on how you want to protect your children through
Speaker 4: this process, they can sit in that negative, potentially toxic
Speaker 4: situation for months and even years, depending how long the
Speaker 4: process takes. And so the reason I think mindset's so
Speaker 4: essential is you have to from the very beginning, make
Speaker 4: a commitment that you're going to keep your children front
Speaker 4: and center and what is best for them at every
Speaker 4: step of the way, every decision you make. And if
Speaker 4: you do that, I actually think it helps you to
Speaker 4: focus on what's most important at the end of this
Speaker 4: which is that your children will make it through be
Speaker 4: able to be confident in themselves, because I do think
Speaker 4: going back to the toxicity, if you don't it can
Speaker 4: have serious ramifications on how children view relationships, how they
Speaker 4: viewed their view on marriage, and actually even their own
Speaker 4: happiness in life. I mean, I talked to friends whose
Speaker 4: parents got divorced in their forties and fifties, and they
Speaker 4: can still talk about what a dramatic impact it had
Speaker 4: on their lives, you know. And I wanted Grace to
Speaker 4: look back and have it as like a comment but
Speaker 4: not the focus. You know, me and my parents are divorced,
Speaker 4: but not yes, because my parents' divorce X, Y, and
Speaker 4: Z was how my life unfolded. So I think mindset,
Speaker 4: sort of go back mindset is essential. It's one of
Speaker 4: the first things that I think you have to do.
Speaker 4: The second is really to think about how you want
Speaker 4: to put the process in place in terms of obviously
Speaker 4: your legal support and your financial view and all those things.
Speaker 4: Those are kind of the basics and you need to
Speaker 4: do that. But one of the things when I was
Speaker 4: preparing for the change, as I call it, was thinking
Speaker 4: about how we would manage Grace's life once the change happened.
Speaker 4: So it's thinking ahead, okay, and really thinking ahead. So
Speaker 4: the example I shares, we actually went to a therapist
Speaker 4: to talk to him before we were going to tell
Speaker 4: Grace that we were getting a divorce, and he sat
Speaker 4: us down and he looked at me to go, Sarah,
Speaker 4: do you travel? And I said, yeah, I actually travel
Speaker 4: internationally for my job. And he looks at Max's husband
Speaker 4: and he says, you travel and I said, yeah, I traveled,
Speaker 4: and he said, I travel domestically. He said, well, Grace
Speaker 4: is about to become a professional traveler. She's going to
Speaker 4: travel every week for the next eleven years until she
Speaker 4: goes off to college, and she's going to have to
Speaker 4: pack a bag. And I burst into tears because I thought,
Speaker 4: that is not what I want for Grace's life. I
Speaker 4: don't want her to feel like she's traveling every week
Speaker 4: and carrying a bag and all these things. So I
Speaker 4: walked out of that session Sarah, and I looked at
Speaker 4: Max's husband and I said, I don't know what this
Speaker 4: looks like, but I want to figure out how we
Speaker 4: avoid Grace feeling like she's a professional traveler every week.
Speaker 4: Super interesting, Yeah, and it's one of those things and
Speaker 4: so what we did, and I do appreciate some of
Speaker 4: the things. I'll share a bit have some socio economic considerations.
Speaker 4: But what we did try to do is that Grace
Speaker 4: had all the basics at both homes. Okay, so when
Speaker 4: she went to school in first grade and she was
Speaker 4: going to either mom or Dad's house after school, she
Speaker 4: wasn't carrying an extra bag in the carpool line as
Speaker 4: the only kid in her class that had divorced parents, Like,
Speaker 4: why do you have that extra bag? What do you know?
Speaker 4: So I didn't want that for her, So we tried
Speaker 4: to have all the basics at both homes. Now I
Speaker 4: do joke that somehow all the socks got over to
Speaker 4: one house. I don't know how, I don't know how.
Speaker 3: It was probably always the house, so she wasn't in.
Speaker 4: Exact exactly there's socks, so something always migrated the other house.
Speaker 4: So what we did, and this is important at least
Speaker 4: from my standpoint, is we would have rebalancing days where
Speaker 4: I would text Mex husband say hey, I'm at a sox,
Speaker 4: I'm at a shorts, whatever the case was, and then
Speaker 4: it wasn't by the way, it wasn't up for Grace
Speaker 4: at age seven or eight or nine to go into
Speaker 4: her dresser and in her closets and figure out what
Speaker 4: was supposed to be at one house to another. She
Speaker 4: did not choose to live across two homes, right, she
Speaker 4: didn't choose that. So it was up to us to
Speaker 4: go and to figure out what that was and then
Speaker 4: to rebounce. And then we would carry the little bag
Speaker 4: of things that we needed to take to their home,
Speaker 4: and when we transitioned, we'd handle it to the other
Speaker 4: parent and then I would go and put it back
Speaker 4: up in her dresser. Again, it wasn't like, hey, Grace,
Speaker 4: go put this away, and she shouldn't have to resort
Speaker 4: her clothes because she lives across two homes. So it's
Speaker 4: a small thing, but it's all those signals to a
Speaker 4: child that they're not living exactly like all their friends are.
Speaker 4: So we just tried to minimize those things whenever we could.
Speaker 3: That is a wonderful practical tip. We're going to take
Speaker 3: a quick break and we will be right back with
Speaker 3: maybe more about the during the change phase. All right,
Speaker 3: we are back. So I love that mindset preparation and
Speaker 3: the practical idea of making sure it's not moving from
Speaker 3: one world to the other, but that we have two homes,
Speaker 3: we have two worlds that we feel equally comfortable in.
Speaker 3: What else did you do or do you recommend doing
Speaker 3: during that change.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So one of the other things that I think
Speaker 4: you have to realize, especially that first year post divorce,
Speaker 4: as I call it preparing for a year first. And
Speaker 4: there's going to be things that you go through, first birthdays,
Speaker 4: first clients, any of the holidays that you would normally
Speaker 4: go through, and you may have family traditions that you
Speaker 4: either have decided you want to try to continue or
Speaker 4: things you can't continue because of the change in structure
Speaker 4: of the family. And so I say that you go
Speaker 4: through that year first, and after each of those first
Speaker 4: you need to evaluate did that work for you and
Speaker 4: for your kids, Like is it something you repeat next
Speaker 4: year in year two or did it have an impact
Speaker 4: in some way where we'd say, you know what, I'm
Speaker 4: not doing it again that way next year. And so
Speaker 4: that was something that that first year, I was very
Speaker 4: conscious of how we were all kind of adjusting to
Speaker 4: this new world and I call it the new normal
Speaker 4: of being divorced. So I would say overall we had
Speaker 4: some great positives, but my first holiday without Grace was
Speaker 4: really hard, really hard. And I looked at it, and
Speaker 4: I looked at the dynamics around and I said, I'm
Speaker 4: not doing this again this next year, because we were
Speaker 4: alternating holidays, so I'd have her like for Thanksgiving, but
Speaker 4: not for Christmas or vice versa. And so I made
Speaker 4: a decision that I would change my tradition the years
Speaker 4: that I didn't have her, and I would actually travel
Speaker 4: and not go and spend the holiday with my family,
Speaker 4: with my nieces and nephews and not have Grace there.
Speaker 4: It felt very strange to me. It's just like, this
Speaker 4: doesn't feel right. So I think you have to evalue
Speaker 4: it for yourself what works, and then decide how you
Speaker 4: want to take those year first into the next year
Speaker 4: and which things you continue with, which things you don't.
Speaker 4: And then another thing that I think is a very
Speaker 4: practice but really an interesting moment that we had during
Speaker 4: our divorce era, I should say, is Grace was in
Speaker 4: sixth grades, so it was about five years after we
Speaker 4: got divorced. And one of the things I find interesting
Speaker 4: is that I think Grace should always feel like her
Speaker 4: parents are both there for her whatever it is. So
Speaker 4: we were going to a parent teacher conference and in
Speaker 4: her school, the child actually goes in sixth grade, the
Speaker 4: child goes to the conference with the teachers and the parents.
Speaker 4: So Grace and Max husband I show up and we
Speaker 4: go into the and sit down as a teacher and
Speaker 4: we're talking, and about almost nearer the end of the conference,
Speaker 4: the teacher stops and she looks as she goes, wait
Speaker 4: a minute, are you too divorced? And I looked and
Speaker 4: I said, yeah, we've been divorced for five years. She said,
Speaker 4: I had no idea. And I looked her and said, well,
Speaker 4: it didn't occur to me to come in here into
Speaker 4: Grace's parent teacher conference say hi, we're divorced. Can we
Speaker 4: not talk about how Grace is doing in school? And
Speaker 4: she said, you know what's amazing is there so few
Speaker 4: parents they can come and sit in this office with
Speaker 4: me for one hour and talk about their child's education,
Speaker 4: being in the same room together. She was, it is
Speaker 4: very very rare.
Speaker 1: You are right.
Speaker 3: I'm a physician for kids, and there are a few.
Speaker 3: And I love it so much, and you're right, it
Speaker 3: does make me like, wow, they did this for the kid,
Speaker 3: like they may not be enjoying it. I can think
Speaker 3: of one family in particular, and they're obviously amicable and
Speaker 3: their focus is wholly on their kid. But it is
Speaker 3: absolutely the exception rather than the rule, which is really sad.
Speaker 4: Isn't that crazy? Yeah? And that's it's exactly what the
Speaker 4: teacher she goes. It makes me really sad that that's
Speaker 4: the case. And I said to her, it makes me
Speaker 4: really sad, because what's more important than sitting down with
Speaker 4: a child and their teacher to hear how they're doing school?
Speaker 4: Probably the second second to going to the doctor and
Speaker 4: hearing that your child is healthy. Right, And so I
Speaker 4: think that's where again, this belief that you can't do
Speaker 4: that or that that's something you shouldn't be able to do.
Speaker 4: I think we've got to change that because otherwise what
Speaker 4: happens that child has to go to two parent teacher
Speaker 4: conferences or by the way, and the teacher has to
Speaker 4: do two parent teacher conferences, And I think why, you know,
Speaker 4: why is that the norm versus the exception?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 3: And the takeaways are like the nuance, isn't it's different
Speaker 3: when there's two because then they're not hearing the same message.
Speaker 3: People aren't able to like kind of come to a
Speaker 3: common understanding, you actually do lose. You lose a lot.
Speaker 4: You lose a lot, you lose a lot. So that's again,
Speaker 4: these are just what I would say, examples of what
Speaker 4: we have to think through. And it's all the day
Speaker 4: to day Sarah, It's all the day to day moments
Speaker 4: that I think you have to think about. And my
Speaker 4: final probably example that I think I feel very strongly
Speaker 4: about is when you have a situation where maybe one
Speaker 4: parent might be staying in the home, like why Grace
Speaker 4: and I stayed in the home that we had been
Speaker 4: in and my ex husband moved to a different home.
Speaker 4: And what I talk about is what I call minimizing
Speaker 4: the gaps. And we, for example, had a long hallway
Speaker 4: of family photos that was interspersed to my ex husband's
Speaker 4: family and there were black and white photos. This is
Speaker 4: montage I'd put together over the years, and I needed
Speaker 4: to give him his photos, his family photos. So I
Speaker 4: took it upon myself to get other photos framed. And
Speaker 4: one day I sent Grace down the street to a
Speaker 4: playdate and I took out this box and I took
Speaker 4: down the photos of myx husband his family. I put
Speaker 4: up some other photos of us and I put it
Speaker 4: all away, and Grace came home an hour later, and
Speaker 4: I'm in the kitchen and I hear this little voice
Speaker 4: from how we go, Hey, Mommy, and I go, what Zachly,
Speaker 4: she goes, the wall has changed. And I stopped in
Speaker 4: my tracks and I said, well, what's changed? She said,
Speaker 4: there are more pictures of me up there. It looks great.
Speaker 4: And she ran upstairs to her room and I stood
Speaker 4: there and took a deep breath. I was like, and
Speaker 4: the thing is, if I hadn't taken the time to
Speaker 4: put other photos up there, and I'd only taken the
Speaker 4: photos of my ex usband's family down and left those
Speaker 4: little hangers interspersed throughout the hallway, what Grace would be
Speaker 4: telling a therapist years later as my parents got divorced,
Speaker 4: and my mom took all the photos of my dad
Speaker 4: off the wall and left those little hangers.
Speaker 3: And it's probably such a metaphor for other things too.
Speaker 4: Right, absolutely, And so I just think that it's something
Speaker 4: we have to be conscious of as our children notice everything.
Speaker 4: They notice everything. By the way, I thought that hallway
Speaker 4: was wallpaper. I mean, I didn't think she ever knew.
Speaker 4: I mean, and she ran up and down that hallway
Speaker 4: literally fifty times a day. It would not have been
Speaker 4: something I thought she noticed. She noticed it instantly, and
Speaker 4: I thought, wow, okay, you know so I just think
Speaker 4: these are And again I go back to there's big
Speaker 4: things in those little things in life, but a lot
Speaker 4: of what happens in a divorce process and then ensuing
Speaker 4: days after that is the day to day of life,
Speaker 4: and you have to think about the impact those moments
Speaker 4: have on your children. And really, I talk about taking
Speaker 4: the high road because it may not be what you
Speaker 4: would want, right, but quite honestly, it's not about you.
Speaker 3: It doesn't matter.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it doesn't matter. It's about how your kids are
Speaker 4: going to look back in this era, in this phase
Speaker 4: of life and say, you know what, my parents got
Speaker 4: a divorce, but they really always try to think about
Speaker 4: what was going to be best for me and my
Speaker 4: siblings if their siblings evolved. And I give them credit
Speaker 4: for doing that. I know it wasn't easy. I'm sure
Speaker 4: it wasn't easy, but that's what they did totally makes sense.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm going to ask you one question which was
Speaker 3: inspired by that listener question we got, but we're going
Speaker 3: to take another really quick break and then we'll be
Speaker 3: right back. All right, we are back, And the question
Speaker 3: we had gotten from a listener was something like, my
Speaker 3: really good friend is getting divorced. How can I best
Speaker 3: supporter during this time?
Speaker 4: So?
Speaker 3: What works? What were the best types of supports that
Speaker 3: you received while you were going through this? And is
Speaker 3: there anything specifically not to do?
Speaker 4: Oh it's a great question, you know. I think in
Speaker 4: terms of what to do, I think as a friend,
Speaker 4: I think just being there for your friend and saying,
Speaker 4: you know, I can be there for you know. I joke.
Speaker 4: The thing you might need is just a near like
Speaker 4: someone to talk to, But it might be a friend
Speaker 4: that says, you know what, if you can't pick up
Speaker 4: for carpool that day, call me in a heartbeat. It
Speaker 4: depends on, you know, what that friendship looks like. But
Speaker 4: I think it's just being there and having that friend
Speaker 4: know that you're there for whatever they need as you're
Speaker 4: going through this. The other thing I'd say, and I
Speaker 4: tried to say this and sometimes it worked and sometimes
Speaker 4: it didn't. But I was not looking for to pick
Speaker 4: sides in the situation. Again. I wanted our friendships, whether
Speaker 4: they were with my ex husband, I as a couple situation,
Speaker 4: or you know, I wanted those friendships to be able
Speaker 4: to continue in whatever form and fashion they should. So
Speaker 4: I really was like, this isn't about picking sides. It's like,
Speaker 4: I just want us all to be able to live
Speaker 4: this next phase of life and have the friendships we
Speaker 4: had before. So I think that's another thing to think
Speaker 4: about as a friend. And then the final thing is
Speaker 4: that understanding what your friend wants the messaging to be
Speaker 4: around their divorce and then just kind of stay true
Speaker 4: to that and honor whatever that is. It may be
Speaker 4: that they say, you know what, I really don't want
Speaker 4: to get into the details. It's happened, it is what
Speaker 4: it is. Others they may want you to help them
Speaker 4: to message it into the world so that everyone understands
Speaker 4: they're going through this, They're going to be fine, the
Speaker 4: kids are gonna be fine, et cetera. So just appreciating
Speaker 4: that might be a role a friend asks you to play,
Speaker 4: and then just being really clear with each other and
Speaker 4: what that looks.
Speaker 3: Like makes sense. All right, But we're going to take
Speaker 3: a quick pivot because you also released a book that's
Speaker 3: very very relevant to this audience. In fact, I have
Speaker 3: a quote from you which said, one of my goals
Speaker 3: in life is to show that you can have a
Speaker 3: family and a career, be happy in both aspects of
Speaker 3: your life, and enjoy each day to the fullest. And
Speaker 3: that is like our tagline as well. It's making work
Speaker 3: in life fit together and really enjoying both the best
Speaker 3: of both worlds. Is where our title comes from. So
Speaker 3: clearly we see eye to eye on some of this. Yes,
Speaker 3: and this is actually your book that's out, like just
Speaker 3: came out, correct.
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, it just came out. It's called The Art
Speaker 4: of a Juggling Act and it's a bite sized guide
Speaker 4: for working parents. And so it is as you said,
Speaker 4: and it is what your podcast is all about. Over
Speaker 4: the years, I've reflected in the fact that we learn
Speaker 4: about a lot of different topics in school. However, we
Speaker 4: do not learn about parenting in school, right, it's not
Speaker 4: a course you generally take. We also don't learn about
Speaker 4: how to manage our career in school. We might learn
Speaker 4: about topics that we might want to do in our career,
Speaker 4: but how to manage your career. And then we don't
Speaker 4: learn about how to manage both of these aspects of
Speaker 4: our life in school, which are two of the most
Speaker 4: important things in life that we're going to do right
Speaker 4: and importantly trying to do them and be healthy and
Speaker 4: happy while we're doing both. And so my goal is
Speaker 4: really to pay it forward to the next generation of
Speaker 4: working parents that I have the pleasure of working with
Speaker 4: every day, and I'm watching them try to figure out
Speaker 4: the juggling act, and so I just have decided I
Speaker 4: wanted to share some thoughts and shift. What I see
Speaker 4: is I see some parents kind of surviving the day
Speaker 4: to day, and I'd love to see them thriving as
Speaker 4: working parents and really enjoying this journey that you're on
Speaker 4: as a working parent. But I know and I completely
Speaker 4: appreciate that that doesn't just happen, and it does take
Speaker 4: some intentional thought and really kind of actively thinking about
Speaker 4: how you want to show up both as a parent
Speaker 4: and in your work in the day to day in
Speaker 4: a way where you can try to do both well.
Speaker 3: And your book has a manual feel to it to me,
Speaker 3: like it it's like, kind of honestly like it would
Speaker 3: be great to give someone when they're pregnant if they planning,
Speaker 3: because it's sort of like goes step by step everything
Speaker 3: from family traditions to setting boundaries to like all these things,
Speaker 3: and it is one take, like it's your take, but
Speaker 3: at the same time, like this is hard to find
Speaker 3: in the cultural geist. And I also like that you
Speaker 3: mentioned it is for parents. It's not for moms, it's
Speaker 3: us all parents.
Speaker 4: It's for all parents. Yes, it's for all parents. And
Speaker 4: actually both of my books are written in a very
Speaker 4: specific way Sarah's. They're called guides for a reason that
Speaker 4: they're in bite sized pieces and every topic is a
Speaker 4: paragraph for a page. So in the Juggling Act book,
Speaker 4: I have one hundred and forty topics outlined in the
Speaker 4: Mom's Guide for a Good Divorce of one hundred and
Speaker 4: eighty five, and the table of contents is outlined topic
Speaker 4: by topic, So if you just want to go in
Speaker 4: and look for the topic that might be something you're
Speaker 4: thinking through, you can just read that page. One of
Speaker 4: the things that I say in general is as working parents,
Speaker 4: we don't have time to really read a book. Let's
Speaker 4: be clear, like that is not something that is generally.
Speaker 3: Laura might push back on that a little bit.
Speaker 4: She might look back again. I know, well, I appreciate that.
Speaker 4: But here's the thing I think that some parents do
Speaker 4: prioritize it. Some it's just it's the thing that falls
Speaker 4: off to life.
Speaker 3: Some prefer not to or they like to do it.
Speaker 4: These things they like to or they might want to
Speaker 4: listen to something right or take in podcasts, different ways
Speaker 4: of getting information. So the reason I wrote the book
Speaker 4: in this way is for it to be bite sized
Speaker 4: for you to take and not to feel like you
Speaker 4: have to read it cover to cover. It is a guide.
Speaker 4: It's meant to be with you along your journey and
Speaker 4: not be something that you just read once and put
Speaker 4: away on the shelf.
Speaker 1: So and it does.
Speaker 4: It covers everything from how to set and protect your
Speaker 4: boundaries in the day to day, which I think is
Speaker 4: one of the most important things we can do as parents,
Speaker 4: is really figuring out what boundaries we want to put
Speaker 4: in place, both for our personal life and for our family,
Speaker 4: but also professionally. And I generally say that you need
Speaker 4: to also share those boundaries with the people around you,
Speaker 4: because if you don't share the boundaries that you set
Speaker 4: for yourself, people will walk all over them in a heartbeat.
Speaker 4: And the only way they can respect boundaries is if
Speaker 4: they do about them. It's one of those important.
Speaker 3: Things I found that It had a very like and
Speaker 3: I liked this a lot, like an unapologetic tone, like,
Speaker 3: you know, we're doing this and we're going to have
Speaker 3: to think through it, and we should try to not
Speaker 3: go down the guilt road because there's not really a
Speaker 3: reason or role for that, and here are lots of
Speaker 3: ways in which you can make it work.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, yeah, and it is. It's meant to be very practical.
Speaker 4: And you're right, a bit of unapologetic.
Speaker 1: That's right, you know, a good way, in a good way.
Speaker 4: Yeah. One of my favorite sayings to Grace as she
Speaker 4: was growing up is Mom's doing the best I can,
Speaker 4: you know, doing the best I can. And so that
Speaker 4: was like my little mantra that I would say to
Speaker 4: her because there were days that things weren't going quite
Speaker 4: as planned, and I'd say, in any given week, there's
Speaker 4: things that don't go quite as planned. And so the
Speaker 4: ability to flex and say, you know what, we did
Speaker 4: the best we could in that moment is I think
Speaker 4: something that's really important. And sometimes I think we all
Speaker 4: have set such a high bar for ourselves in terms
Speaker 4: of how everything is supposed to go and how everything
Speaker 4: is supposed to look and how and I think it
Speaker 4: is a matter of us giving ourselves the race to
Speaker 4: know that we're doing the best we can as we're
Speaker 4: trying to manage to struggling at.
Speaker 3: I love that that ending sentence, especially because your daughter's
Speaker 3: name is great. Yes, and we always do. Sorry I
Speaker 3: didn't even warn you about this, but we always have
Speaker 3: a segment in each episode called Love of the Week
Speaker 3: where you share something that is bringing you joy. It
Speaker 3: can be anything off the top of the head. It
Speaker 3: can be a product that you bought. It can be
Speaker 3: a scent that you smelled outside, it can be anything. Okay,
Speaker 3: I can go first, just to just to give you
Speaker 3: a minute. My love of the week is that I
Speaker 3: got a new laptop after six years of having one.
Speaker 3: It was a MacBook Pro and I really loved that
Speaker 3: machine except the keyboard never actually worked, or maybe it
Speaker 3: worked in the very beginning, but the key is stuck
Speaker 3: and I just dealt with it for year after year
Speaker 3: after year, and honestly, it's not until I have this
Speaker 3: new one that I'm like, Wow, typing's really easy. It
Speaker 3: was like introducing typos where there weren't any, and I
Speaker 3: just put up with it. So loving my new MacBook
Speaker 3: Air that seems to not have the same keyboard at all.
Speaker 1: I love that.
Speaker 4: Okay, I might take a slightly different angle, but a
Speaker 4: love for me this week is Grace and I were
Speaker 4: just talking the other night. She is graduating from college,
Speaker 4: which is a very very big deal, and she is,
Speaker 4: you know, embarking on this process of interviewing for jobs
Speaker 4: and finding her path. And I think the love for
Speaker 4: me is just hearing her so excited and confident about
Speaker 4: heading out into the world. And I've always said I've
Speaker 4: raised her for her wings to fly, and I'm seeing
Speaker 4: the wings fly, and so I think for me that's
Speaker 4: been That was we talked on. She's in college, so
Speaker 4: we talk on Sunday nights and kind of catch up,
Speaker 4: and so we had a great discussion last night on
Speaker 4: how she's thinking about things, and you know, and it's
Speaker 4: at a different stage of parenting life when you're kind
Speaker 4: of listening and you're giving some commentary, but it's her life,
Speaker 4: and so I just love that she's at that stage
Speaker 4: and that we're able to kind of talk through things
Speaker 4: as she's thinking through it. So I'd say that's that's
Speaker 4: my love of the week was our conversation about kind
Speaker 4: of this next phase and all that she's thinking through.
Speaker 1: I love that.
Speaker 3: So tell our listeners where they can find you.
Speaker 4: Great. So yeah, So I have actually have two websites
Speaker 4: from my respective books. So the Juggling Act dot Com
Speaker 4: is for the parenting book, and then the Mom's Guide
Speaker 4: to a Good Divorce is on Good Divorce dot guide.
Speaker 4: And you can also find both of my books on Amazon,
Speaker 4: and actually the Mom's Guide to Good Divorces in paperback, ebook, iBook,
Speaker 4: kindlenook all those as well as an audiobook, and The
Speaker 4: Juggling Act is in paperback and ebook I book. I
Speaker 4: have not yet gone into the studio to do the audio.
Speaker 4: I will do that, I haven't done it quite yet.
Speaker 4: And then also you can reach out to me on
Speaker 4: LinkedIn is probably the best way to connect with me,
Speaker 4: and also have my contact information on both of my websites.
Speaker 3: So awesome, and we will put your sites on the
Speaker 3: show notes as well.
Speaker 4: Great.
Speaker 3: Great, Thank you so much for coming on, Sarah.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much for having me. Great to spend
Speaker 4: time with you.
Speaker 2: Well, we are back. That was a great interview. Sarah
Speaker 2: talking with Sarah Armstrong, the author of The Mom's Guide
Speaker 2: to a Good Divorce along with the Art of the
Speaker 2: juggling act, lots of tips and strategies. So today's question
Speaker 2: Sarah ideas for what to have thirteen to fourteen year
Speaker 2: olds do over the summer if they are aged out
Speaker 2: of day camp or at least don't want to go
Speaker 2: to it.
Speaker 3: So question for Sarah, because Sarah wrote the question, wrote
Speaker 3: the question.
Speaker 2: Sometimes these questions are our questions that forced us to
Speaker 2: think about what we're saying.
Speaker 1: Well, what's your situation here?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so it's always been easy to find various summer
Speaker 3: activities for the kids. I feel like we've generally tried
Speaker 3: to choose specialty camps based on their interest, just because
Speaker 3: especially in the older elementary school and beyond years, I
Speaker 3: feel like that's been more of a draw. And then
Speaker 3: there's been some weeks of sleep away. But I just
Speaker 3: feel like this is the first year where there's not
Speaker 3: a lot of offerings. A lot of camps go to twelve,
Speaker 3: and not a lot of them go beyond that. I mean,
Speaker 3: overnight camps do, but my kids have not had interested
Speaker 3: a traditional overnight camp. I guess I could have done
Speaker 3: like two full sessions of the Monday to Friday camp
Speaker 3: for six weeks, but that just sort of felt like
Speaker 3: a little bit of overkill. Plus she has other sports
Speaker 3: and stuff, so yeah, I mean, I'm sort of like
Speaker 3: wondering if doing a few hours of gymnastics practices three
Speaker 3: days a week will be enough. But the unfortunate thing
Speaker 3: is that those practices are at like four not it'd
Speaker 3: be wonderful if they written noon, that would be plenty,
Speaker 3: but like at four, I don't know.
Speaker 1: So she's not waking up before noon.
Speaker 3: No, she won't. She'll She'll probably start waking up at two,
Speaker 3: and then you've got like a lot of late night
Speaker 3: Hours's totally different.
Speaker 2: She'll be nocturnal the rest of you, because eight hours before.
Speaker 1: Two pm is six am.
Speaker 3: I can hardly imagine like I'm getting up and she's
Speaker 3: going to bed. So yeah, trying to avoid that, and
Speaker 3: just I want to make sure that nobody gets too bored.
Speaker 3: So I don't know. For me, I was always like
Speaker 3: a cit so counselor and training. I feel like she
Speaker 3: would actually love that. So I'm going to try to
Speaker 3: see if I can find anything. But I think some
Speaker 3: of the programs these days kind of start a little
Speaker 3: bit older, so we're in this weird gray zone.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it is a weird gray zone.
Speaker 2: So my kid in that age range has one week
Speaker 2: of sleepaway camp, one week helping out with our church's
Speaker 2: Bible camp, two weeks of theater camp, hoping she'll be
Speaker 2: able to get together with a cousin for a week.
Speaker 2: There might be some friends stuff going on as well,
Speaker 2: with friends going places and taking her along, but you know,
Speaker 2: there might also be some downtime. My other kid, who's
Speaker 2: probably too young to really well, he could get a job,
Speaker 2: the fifteen year old, but he's taking two online courses
Speaker 2: as a summer thing. But I think we're gonna have
Speaker 2: to enforce a certain hours work hours thing with that,
Speaker 2: because yeah, there will be a lot of sleeping until
Speaker 2: noon two four two. I think you know, we could say,
Speaker 2: like get yourself up by ten. That seems reasonable to
Speaker 2: be working at ten thirty or eleven, do four hours
Speaker 2: of work or five with a break, and then you
Speaker 2: can go hang out with friends, do video games until
Speaker 2: ridiculous hours. But people are busy during the school year,
Speaker 2: so I gain it's not the worst thing in the
Speaker 2: world to have some downtime. But yeah, we've sent kids
Speaker 2: in that age range to there's some like like CTY
Speaker 2: has three weeks summer academic camps.
Speaker 1: That's been something people have done.
Speaker 2: Some of the universities have pre college programs that if
Speaker 2: you're a freshman or above, you could go to so
Speaker 2: a little bit older fourteen fifteen, but that could still
Speaker 2: work for some kids in that age.
Speaker 4: Cool.
Speaker 3: All right, well, listeners, you can feel free to weigh
Speaker 3: on on this one as well. Let us know what
Speaker 3: you've done, what has worked, or feel free to just commisserate.
Speaker 2: Yes, exactly, all right, Well, this has been best of
Speaker 2: both worlds. Sarah was interviewing Sarah Armstrong, author of The
Speaker 2: Mom's Guide to a Good Divorce. We will be back
Speaker 2: next week with more on making work and life fit together.
Speaker 3: Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the
Speaker 3: shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram.
Speaker 2: And you can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
Speaker 2: This has been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please
Speaker 2: join us next time for more on making work and
Speaker 2: life work together.