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PODCAST

The Mother Of It All

Sarah and Miranda

We are Miranda Rake and Sarah Wheeler, two friends, mothers and professional writers on the parenting beat. The Mother Of It All is a podcast where we dive deep into the culture of modern motherhood. Expect warmth, humor and over-considered takes on hot topics, fresh takes on old ones, expert guests and good times. motherofitall.substack.com

kids & family parenting

All Episodes

58:16

Smurf Guns & Surrogate Fantasies

The Mother Of It All ·

2025/08/11

One last summer check-in to tide us all over until Season 3! Sarah and Miranda dive into the chaos and comedy of back-to-school season, teen babysitter economics, toy gun ethics, and of course, the emotional calculus of modern parenting (and Miranda accidentally makes Sarah cry). We unpack whether Stepbrothers is misogyny at its most insidious, why we are selling kids pink AK-47s, our crone fantasies, and the weird beauty of watching your kids become people.Not relevant to the episode at all, but

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42:20

How's Your Summer?

The Mother Of It All ·

2025/07/15

Hi! We’re alive out here! (Whether we are truly more alive than usual or merely feeling like we should be because it’s summer remains unclear.) Tune in for a meandering summer catch up between seasons in which we cover vacation nonsense (like asking for an hour to yourself and then waiting for someone to offer it to you), summer illness, whether or not it’s a good idea to throw your phone into the river, a little bit of camp gossip and more. We’re also letting you see our faces, because apparently

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59:55

Spreading Joy One Dinorama At A Time, with Rachael...

The Mother Of It All ·

2025/06/30

Today, we’re kicking off our summer bonus episodes with a little ode to sidewalk art installations! We’re not just talking about little free libraries (though those are awesome!) we’re talking about the weird, wild and creative ways people express themselves and spread joy through artistic, playful, interactive installations on their sidewalks, stoops and fences, and the unique, important role these little joy blips have in building stronger communities.I first stumbled across the PDX Dinorama

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8:37

What We're Summer-Reading Right Now

The Mother Of It All ·

2025/06/16

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit motherofitall.substack.comIt’s a just-the-two-of-us episode for our beautiful paid subscribers. We chat about the parenting books currently in our TBR piles (so many good books on motherhood lately, so little time) and the ones we’re most obsessed with, the pitfalls of comparing ourselves to Ursula K. LeGuin, making peace with not being a person who writes a slew of culture-chan…

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68:14

Angela Garbes Gets Better with Age

The Mother Of It All ·

2025/06/09

“You're going to spend, if you're lucky, a quarter or a third of your life ‘in menopause.’ And we need dialogue about it. We need to talk about it.”Angela Garbes returns to explore the pains and delights of middle age. Angela schools us on the sex lives of menopausal orcas, why Carl Jung wants us all to become more selfish as we age, and her pitch for a rebrand of the “crone” stage. Links:* Angela in Romper on The Morning Rush* Angela’s Guardian column, Halfway There * Angela’s great books,

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7:14

I Think We're Changing Schools. Help!

The Mother Of It All ·

2025/06/06

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit motherofitall.substack.comDid you know that Sarah Wheeler is actually a real live professional educational psychologist and parent coach? Today, Miranda asks Sarah to put on her Dr. hat and give some professional advice about changing schools. When you start to think about sending your kid to a different school, how can you know that you’re making the right choice? What if the new school isn…

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8:55

To melatonin or not to melatonin, our '90s playlists,...

The Mother Of It All ·

2025/05/30

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit motherofitall.substack.comIt’s Friday and we’re taking it easy & talking it through! All of it. It’s just the two of us, Miranda and Sarah, checking in about our parenting lives and LIFE lives. We’re talking about everything that’s been going on for us lately, from teaching our kids tongue twisters, checking Reddit for each other, adventures in toddler asthma, motherhood and vig…

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76:14

The WNBA's Baller Moms with Frankie de la Cretaz

The Mother Of It All ·

2025/05/26

Journalist Frankie de la Cretaz joins us to talk women’s sports and all things WNBA! We dig into player and WAG fashion, the visibility of queer families on and off the court, the truth about trans athletes, and mother-athletes past, present and future. Links:* Frankie De La Cretaz on Substack* Frankie’s book, Hail Mary: The Rise and Fall of the National Women’s Football League* Molly Dickens’ the Maternal Stress Project* WNBA Documentaries 144 and The Power of the Dream* Basketball Wives* Angel

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57:38

What We Have To Learn From Other Mothering Animals...

The Mother Of It All ·

2025/05/12

British author Helen Jukes joins us to talk about motherhood in the animal kingdom, and what human mothers can learn from mothers from other species. What is “natural” about motherhood, what is the true nature of motherhood across species? What can we learn by allowing ourselves to truly see and examine the many roles of the mother in nature? At one poetic and rigorous, Helen Jukes’ beautiful new book, Mother / Animal, is an illuminating exploration of her own matrescence through the lens of

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77:50

Jessica Grose On What MAHA Momfluencers Get Right,...

The Mother Of It All ·

2025/04/28

MAHA (or “Make America Healthy Again”) motherhood is a bit of a mindf*uck. What, one asks oneself, unites “crunchy” hippie-leaning momfluencers (like Rudy Jude & her wannabes) of the world with someone as spray-tanned Marjorie Taylor Green? One looks like a sentient carcinogen, and one looks like she's never even heard of food dye! So how do we understand their alliance under the umbrella of Making American Healthy Again? For many of us, there are some points of connection with these MAHA moms,

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10:04

"Mama, Why Your Pants Have A Zipper??"

The Mother Of It All ·

2025/04/21

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit motherofitall.substack.comSome people have told us that this podcast is for “literary mom nerds” and we’re into that! So, today for our beloved die-hard paid subscribers we’re leaning into that! (Please consider becoming one of those, if you aren’t already!) We decided to make an episode about what we’re reading and loving right now, and what’s in our TBR piles. We’re still in t…

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71:44

Amanda Hess On Pregnancy & Parenthood In A Digital World

The Mother Of It All ·

2025/04/14

New York Times critic at large Amanda Hess joins us to talk about the convergence of parenthood and technology. We dig in to everything from freebirthers to prenatal testing, and from “complicated” pregnancies to the many anxieties (and joys, too) of raising a child in a world where a $1600 Snoo has become a newborn must-have and corporations know about our pregnancies before our immediate families do. Hess’s much anticipated memoir, Second Life: Having A Child In The Digital Age (which we both

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87:10

The Wisdom of Disabled Parenting 2.0 with Jessica Slice

The Mother Of It All ·

2025/04/07

We reunite with author and parent Jessica's Slice ahead of the release of her tremendous book, Unfit Parent: A Disabled Mother Challenges an Inaccessible World, to learn how her life with a second child has taught her to throw out the milestones and ask for help (even when it involves a dead possum!). Then, you get to listen to Sarah’s initial interview with Jessica, which remains one of our all time favorites and touches on parenting perfectionism, disability justice, and parenting neurodivergent

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76:49

Differently-Wired with Debbie Reber

The Mother Of It All ·

2025/03/31

Debbie Reber, the host of the Tilt Parenting podcast, talks to us about what she’s learned from having hundreds of conversations on raising differently-wired kids. We discuss independence versus self-determination, low-demand parenting, how to find your parenting integrity, and whether even having these conversations is a parenting privilege. Links:* Miranda is So Busy So Bored* The Woman Who Thought She Was a Planet and Other Stories by Vandana Singh* Our new Bookshop storefront!* Tilt Parenting

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26:10

Pandemic Parents, 5 Years Later: The doctor who was...

The Mother Of It All ·

2025/03/28

“I remember the bizarre feeling of my baby kicking inside me while taking care of patients dying of COVID in the hospital.”Brett was a doctor in a small town when the pandemic hit, with a toddler at home and a baby on the way. In this episode, she and Miranda (who are childhood friends) talk through her experience as a parent, spouse, and physician during those intense years, and the way they continue to impact her and her family five years later. Also, we agree that a cold juice box actually does

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22:25

Pandemic Parents, 5 Years Later: The mom who put...

The Mother Of It All ·

2025/03/26

“Coming into parenthood for the second time, I knew a lot. And I think I had this vision of what I would do differently, and I was going to plug into the local mom's groups, or plug into the play dates and take the yoga classes with the kids and things like that. And it became not that. It became just very, very isolating.”Sarah talks to Marta, who had a fresh professional and parenting start planned, only to be hit with the pandemic. We discuss her desires to tend to her self now that her kids are

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10:12

Adult Friendship, Potlucks, Quitting Instagram, & More!

The Mother Of It All ·

2025/03/24

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit motherofitall.substack.com

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17:06

Pandemic Parents, 5 Years Later: The mom who gave...

The Mother Of It All ·

2025/03/21

Sarah speaks with Arianne, who gave birth just days into the pandemic lockdown. They discuss how birth trauma and isolation led Arianne to doubt her attachment to her daughter, tricky family relationships, and how she’s healed and found what they call “heart family.” Links: * Our pandemic parenting survey (you can still take it if you want to)* The first episode of our pandemic parenting surveyIf you love (or honestly even just like) the work that Sarah & Miranda do here on Mother Of It All, please

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64:04

Does YouTube Deserve Our Kids Attention? With Amil Niazi

The Mother Of It All ·

2025/03/17

One of The Cut’s parenting columnists and official friend-of-the-pod, Amil Niazi, joins us to talk about her recent essay on weaning her kids off YouTube. We’ve covered screen time, but this time we’re talking about algorithmic content. Is the algorithm as unavoidable as it feels to many of us? Or is it worth it for parents to push back — even when it makes for some awkward moments with other families — and try to hold out as long as they can? If your kids are already hooked on YouTube, like Amil’s

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20:03

Pandemic Parents, 5 Years Later: The mom who had just...

The Mother Of It All ·

2025/03/14

“I truly believe in the power of policy, and I have been like radicalized by that, since becoming a mom and living here.”Sarah chats with Ariana, a mom in Norway, about how it felt to be a fresh ex-pat when the world shut down. They discuss the overlap and many differences between parenting in the U.S. and Norway during covid, the impact that financial support makes, and how hard it can be to navigate new places at a time when people are holing up. Links: * Ariana wrote more about her pandemic

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98 results

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