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Momfluencers: Inside The Billion-Dollar Industry of Instagram & Mommy Bloggers — Episode #211 with Sara Petersen

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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.

How Childhood Stress Affects Adult Health — Episode #206 with Michelle Stephens

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Dr. Michelle Stephens, PhD, CPNP, RN is cofounder and chief nursing officer of Oath Care. Her experiences as a pediatric clinician, early childhood stress scientist, and mom deeply inform how she leads and builds in healthcare technology. In this episode we talk about Michelle’s career journey from pediatric nurse practitioner to healthcare startup founder — and what she’s learned along the way.

Love and Loss: A Journey Through Grief and Healing — Episode #204 with Marisa Renee Lee

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Marisa Renee Lee is the author of Grief is Love: Living with Loss, a book that guides readers through the pain of loss and offers a unique perspective on what healing truly means. Together, Sarah and Marisa explore the complexities of grief, including the need to feel difficult emotions and the role of self care and supportive relationships in the healing process.

The First Year of Parenting: What I Wish I’d Known — Episode #185 with Vanessa Van Edwards

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Vanessa Van Edwards learned right away that being an expert in behavioral science did not translate into innate parenting know-how. Vanessa joined us earlier to talk about those first few blurry weeks of infancy and babies in Episode #104. Now, she’s opening up about the first year, explaining that while some phases do indeed “go by so fast,” others can feel like a slog, but telling parents that it goes by so fast is not, well, helpful. We dig into the nitty-gritty of the first year of parenting, what surprised us, what we wish we’d known, and the milestones most parenting books miss.

Writing About Family Life on Twitter: Where’s the Line? — Episode #184 with James Breakwell

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Growing up, James Breakwell never had to think about what jobs he wasn’t allowed to pursue. That changed when he had kids. As the father of four girls — one of whom recently said she wants to be a construction worker, and another who asked if she could be the Pope — he’s had to put himself in the shoes of the females surrounding him at home. As an author and internet personality behind the popular Twitter account @XplodingUnicorn, James is best known for his viral tweets depicting hilarious snippets of conversations with his daughters. In this interview with our first startup dad, he gets real about how he navigates building a public persona based on his family life — including how much to share and what to withhold.

How Brands Mess Up Marketing To Women — Episode #183 with Amber Anderson

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Creative dynamo Amber Anderson is the founder of Tote & Pears, a branding and marketing agency with a female focus. For her, becoming an entrepreneur was about more than the business. It was about creating possibilities for her family, establishing a set of core values for her family, and aligning her business values and family needs holistically. We first interviewed Amber on Episode #029 all about the birth of her son and her business. We invite her back to talk about what marketing to women looks like, how brands and agencies can better understand their target audience, and how to build a business that works for you and your family. Tune in to this episode to hear returning guest Amber describe how she aligns family values with work values, the rebranding of her marketing to become female-focused, and why she is committed to keeping work and home life intertwined (while keeping her work weeks around 40-50 hours).

Designing Business Structures for Resilience — Episode #181 (with co-host Cary Fortin)

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If you haven’t heard the story of how the Wise Women’s Council started, listen in as we talk about what it took to create a program while five months pregnant and a young toddler at home. Business as usual wouldn’t work, so Sarah asked how to design a business and a high-touch mastermind community differently. The early version of the Wise Women’s Council was forged with a network of teachers and coaches, and has focused on resilience and flexibility since the beginning.

Pandemic Parents and What We Went Through — Episode #180 (with co-host Cary Fortin)

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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

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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.

The Wise Women’s Council is Back For A Fourth Year

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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

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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.

Leading A Startup Team While Pregnant & Parenting in a Pandemic — Episode #176 with Jess Kamada

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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

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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.

Raising Them: Gender Creative Parenting — Episode #174 with Dr. Kyl Myers

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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.

Why Are The Stories Of Motherhood So White? — Episode #173 with Nefertiti Austin

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In America, the word “mother” is nearly always describing white motherhood. That’s what Nefertiti, a single African American woman and the author of “Motherhood So White,” discovered when she decided she wanted to adopt a Black baby boy out of the foster care system. Nefertiti was shocked by the assumptions people had about what adoption, motherhood, and Black motherhood should look like. She realized that American society saw motherhood through a white lens, and that there would be no easy understanding or acceptance of the kind of family she hoped to build.

Areas of Control: A Coaching Practice (Plus, Something To Look Forward To) — Episode #172

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In a year with a pandemic, wildfires, the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and more, it can be easy to fall into despair, sadness, or anger. Even if you’re reading this years from now, things can go wrong—and they often do. People pass on, projects go under, businesses are forced to change. Part of the work of being human is reconciling with all that is beyond our control. Here’s a practical exercise to understand what’s within your control, and how to use it.

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