RECENT ARTICLES + PODCASTS
When Will I Get My Body Back? Motherhood As Awakening — Episode #221 with Amanda Montei
Stop. Touching. Me. What exactly are you allowed to say as a mother if you're feeling overwhelmed, over-touched, without a moment to yourself, at the beck and call of other people, and completely inundated with demands? You're not allowed to say that it's brutal—you...
Health and Wellness Advice Is Failing You. Here’s Why. — Episode Number 217 with Ali Shapiro
When Ali Shapiro battled cancer as a teenager, she received chemotherapy and radiation treatments. While Western medicine was able to save her life, it destroyed her health in the process. After getting a cancer-free diagnosis, Ali committed to understanding how to...
Unicorn Uterus, Surrogacy, and Triblings — All While Building A Fashion Empire: Episode #215 with Sarah LaFleur
Sarah LaFleur’s journey as an entrepreneur and parent hasn’t always been clearcut. In her first job out of school, Sarah was working at a management consultant firm. Early in her tenure there, one of the partners asked the employees, “which of you in here thinks that...
Building Your Village as a Mother — Episode #214 with Beth Berry
Beth Berry became a mother for the first time at 17, but it wasn’t until she got married that she fully understood the injustices around motherhood. As a teen mom, Beth had consistent help with her daughter because she lived with her family. Her family was a built-in...
“Grieving An Avalanche of Emotions” A Professional Ice Climber Shares How Motherhood Irrevocably Changed Her Career — Episode #212 with Majka Burhardt
Majka Burhardt is a professional climber and twin mom. The depth of emotions she felt when balancing career and motherhood was a challenge, as she dealt with the restrictions to her professional life, an avalanche of feelings, and learning how to let go of her desire for control.
Momfluencers: Inside The Billion-Dollar Industry of Instagram & Mommy Bloggers — Episode #211 with Sara Petersen
Sara Petersen is a writer whose essays about feminism, domesticity, and motherhood have appeared in the New York Times, Harper’s Bazaar, the Washington Post, and more. In this episode of the Startup Parent podcast, host Sarah K Peck interviews Sara to discuss her most recent book, Momfluenced: Inside the Maddening, Picture-Perfect World of Mommy Influencer Culture. They talked about how momfluencer culture impacts women psychologically, as consumers, as performers of their stories, and as mothers.
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Creating Outrage As A Marketing Strategy
Over the last week, the internet has popped up loads of articles about influencers behaving badly—in one case, the queen of relatability and toxic positivity shared casual, demeaning remarks about her hired help, then offered a non-apology that involved throwing her own team under the bus, then deleted the bad posts, and—wait for it, I’m sure within the next few days, tears will be next. There will be tears, and a public apology (a “real” one), and a vow to do better. It strikes me that this is strategic, because we’ve seen this playbook before. It’s a marketing strategy, and you’re being played.
Cassandra Speaks: Women and Our Right to A New Form of Power
It’s time we talked about what power looks like for women, and how we claim our right to power—specifically a new feminine form of power. For centuries, we’ve told men’s stories, and we’ve told stories about masculine power. That power looks like power over other people, like strength, coercion, domination, and defeat. Women have fought for years to do all the things that men have done, Elizabeth Lesser writes—to vote, to lead, to have sex, to lead universities and companies and societies, to have babies, to leave the house, to leave marriages. But it’s time to move into a new form and vision of power. Here’s what it might look like.
Pandemic Parents and What We Went Through — Episode #180 (with co-host Cary Fortin)
What we went through last year, and what we are still going through, is beyond comprehension and imagination. Many pandemic parents are still trying to survive, out of work, and picking up the pieces from last year. Many more are grieving deeply, and some of us don’t have a clear roadmap for grief or recovery. Pandemic parents feel anything from grief to resilience, anger to exhaustion. We are not the same as before.
Startup Parent: The Name Change — Episode #179
Startup Pregnant will be renamed Startup Parent. One of the biggest problems of the modern cultural dialogue around work and parenting is that it’s centered exclusively on women and mothers. There are different challenges facing mothers and fathers, and women face larger workplace penalties and cultural challenges than men, but the harm of patriarchal systems and capitalist obsessions with ‘Ideal Workers’ hurts both men and women, and the solutions for problems women are facing won’t come without an integrated understanding from all genders.
Community Question 🗣 What Is Mom Guilt and When Do You Feel It?
What is mom guilt, where does it show up, and how do you deal with it? We ask readers to share if they feel mom guilt, and why.
The Wise Women’s Council is Back For A Fourth Year
We are two weeks away from kicking off our fourth class of The Wise Women’s Council, and we have an extraordinary group of people joining us for the year ahead. The Wise Women’s Council (WWC) is our year-long leadership incubator for women business leaders, entrepreneurs, and innovators who are also navigating pregnancy, parenthood, and motherhood. We go deep together for the better part of a year and support women at their growth edge who want to continue to level up in their life and career.
Dr. Shani Cooper: Pregnancy, Birth, and Private Practice in 2020 — Episode #177
Navigating business challenges while navigating pregnancy is tough—navigating pregnancy, business, private practice, and doing it all in a pandemic is extraordinarily difficult. Dr. Shani Cooper, the founder of Root and Soul, runs a holistic health, wellness, and birth support practice based in San Diego. She was also pregnant in 2020, and a member of The Wise Women’s Council last year. We found a few moments to catch up about the year we had, and what it was like to be pregnant, give birth, and run a business in a global pandemic.
The Wise Women’s Council: 2021 Scholarship Contest
If you’re looking to apply to join us in this year’s Wise Women’s Council, we are hosting our annual scholarship competition the first week of February. Please read this post in its entirety for all the details on how to enter, the program requirements, how and when we’ll select the winners, and when you can expect to be notified of the results. Join us for a seven-day storytelling challenge to connect to other parents and be entered to win a 50% scholarship to join The Wise Women’s Council Class of 2021.
Leading A Startup Team While Pregnant & Parenting in a Pandemic — Episode #176 with Jess Kamada
What’s it like to run a team of 40 people, in a pandemic, with a 1-year-old, and get pregnant with your second kid? Jess Kamada, VP of Client Services at Bamboo, a top growth marketing firm based in Seattle, joined me for a special episode to talk about how she managed the pandemic and the last year. Jess joined us in the 2020 Wise Women’s Council, and I asked her if she would be open to sharing her story and experience on the podcast, and share some insights into what it’s like to be in the Wise Women’s Council, and why she chose the Group Coaching level.
Reflections on 2020: Growth, Slow Downs, and Surprises — Episode #175
Last year my family and I didn’t have childcare coverage for seven months. It was a long, tiring year, and we are starting 2021 in a similar place—we’re home for ten days, without childcare, waiting for the days when we can go back to daycare. I wish that 2021 could magically, instantly be different and that I could snap my fingers for all of us to remove so much of the chaos and uncertainty in our lives. Frustratingly, it looks like the upcoming year will certainly be bringing its challenges our way. In this podcast, I’m doing a highlights reel of the last year, and I want to share some of the key moments from 2020 and the lessons gleaned from the year we had.
We Need Women’s Leadership Now, More Than Ever
We need your leadership from where you are—as you are. We’ve known for a long time that we need much more diverse leadership, that we need women’s leadership, and that we need new models of power. As Elizabeth Lesser says, we need to embrace “power to,” not just “power over.” We need truth telling, and we need new visions. We need you, your work, and your brave new thinking. We need you to show up. We need you to be who you really are, not what an archaic model of power and “leadership” tells you to be. Take care, take the rest you need, take action, and show up. Even and especially as you are.
The Wise Women’s Council is Now Open For Applications—Join The Class of 2021
The Wise Women’s Council is a gathering space for driven, ambitious women carving out a new world of work, leadership, and parenting. Applications are now open for our 2021 leadership program. Apply to join us—the program starts in March.
What We Forget To Say
I wrote a long post last weekend about deciding to stay home for Thanksgiving, and how to talk to your family about hard decisions. The decisions we're making right now are impossible and exhausting. In the Wise Women's Council (a group of 30 women I mastermind with...
Raising Them: Gender Creative Parenting — Episode #174 with Dr. Kyl Myers
Dr. Kyl Myers holds a PhD in sociology and gender studies, and is an award-winning educator and a globally recognized advocate for gender creative parenting. Since 2016, Kyl has been speaking and writing about gender creative parenting and using their own parenting story to help the world learn about and embrace a new type of childhood. Dr. Myers is the author of Raising Them: Our Adventure In Gender Creative Parenting. Join us for a fascinating conversation about parenting, gender, and what we can do as parents to help reduce gender violence, oppression against women and men, and create a more playful world.