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PODCAST

What Fresh Hell: Laughing in the Face of Motherhood | Parenting Tips From Funny Moms

Margaret Ables and Amy Wilson

When you"re a parent, every day brings a "fresh hell" to deal with. In other words, there"s always something. Think of us as your funny mom friends who are here to remind you: you"re not alone, and it won"t always be this hard. We"re Amy Wilson and Margaret Ables, both busy moms of three kids, but with completely different parenting styles. Margaret is a laid-back to the max; Amy never met a spreadsheet or an organizational system she didn"t like. In each episode of "What Fresh Hell" we offer lots

kids & family parenting

All Episodes

38:47

Why Kids Get Obsessed—And Why It's a Good Thing

What Fresh Hell: Laughing in the Face of Motherhood |... ·

2025/10/29

Amy and Margaret discuss why kids become intensely obsessed with the things they love—whether it’s dinosaurs, Pokémon, sharks, or Spider-Man—and how those fascinations manifest throughout their childhoods. They explore the developmental benefits of "intense interests," from mastery and comfort to confidence and identity. They break down when an obsession is typical and when it may need gentle guidance. Finally, they discuss how to connect with kids through their intense interests—and then use

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45:04

DEEP DIVE: Kendra Adachi (The Lazy Genius) on...

What Fresh Hell: Laughing in the Face of Motherhood |... ·

2025/10/27

We're so glad to be talking to ⁠Kendra Adachi⁠ again this week. Kendra is the host of the⁠ Lazy Genius Podcast⁠ and the two-time New York Times bestselling author of The Lazy Genius Way and The Lazy Genius Kitchen. In this interview, we discuss what Kendra calls "compassionate time management" and her newest book, ⁠The PLAN: Manage Your Time Like a Lazy Genius.⁠Kendra shares insights on productivity, pivoting in the face of unexpected life events, and the pitfalls of traditional time management

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43:07

Fresh Take: Irin Carmon, UNBEARABLE

What Fresh Hell: Laughing in the Face of Motherhood |... ·

2025/10/24

Content note: This episode discusses complications of pregnancy, including pregnancy loss and maternal death. Amy and Margaret sit down with journalist and author Irin Carmon to discuss her new book, UNBEARABLE: Five Women and the Perils of Pregnancy in America. Through research and deep reporting, Carmon exposes the complicated reality of being pregnant in today's America. Whether a pregnancy is wanted or unwanted, Carmon reveals how bias, systemic failures, secrecy and shame, and our changing

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3:23

Introducing: So Your Parents Are Old

What Fresh Hell: Laughing in the Face of Motherhood |... ·

2025/10/23

Sharing an episode of the new podcast So Your Parents Are Old. Journalist Vanessa Grigoriadis talks to friends, experts, and celebrities about the chaos of dealing with aging parents. From Medicaid nightmares to emotional meltdowns in storage units, it’s a brutally honest, often hilarious look at one of life’s most disorienting stages. Come for the catharsis, stay for the gallows humor and unfiltered conversations. Find more episodes of So Your Parents Are Old at

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45:06

How Kids Spend Their Time (And How They Should)

What Fresh Hell: Laughing in the Face of Motherhood |... ·

2025/10/22

How are our kids actually spending their time — and is it aligned with what we value for our families' lives and for our children's well-being?This week, Amy and Margaret discuss: How sleep too often loses out to homework and activities Time tracking and the sobering truth it can show about how many hours a week our kids actually spend on screens How outdoor time and free play, too often in short supply, affects creativity, independence, and self-regulation Strategies

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22:04

Dr. Natasha Bhuyan Introduces Amazon One Medical...

What Fresh Hell: Laughing in the Face of Motherhood |... ·

2025/10/21

This episode is brought to you by Amazon One Medical. Ever notice how kids only seem to get rashes in the middle of the night? Or get pinkeye only while you’re on vacation? It’s what we like to call a typical “mom worst”—and here comes a great new solution: Amazon One Medical Pay-Per-Visit is now offering trusted care through telehealth visits for families with kids ages 2-11. No insurance required, no waiting rooms, no hassle! In this episode we speak to Dr. Natasha Bhuyan—mom, practicing family

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35:20

DEEP DIVE: Laura Vanderkam on "Tranquility By Tuesday"

What Fresh Hell: Laughing in the Face of Motherhood |... ·

2025/10/20

Laura Vanderkam⁠ is the author of several time management books, including the just-out ⁠"Tranquility by Tuesday: 9 Ways to Calm the Chaos and Make Time for What Matters."⁠ She hosts the every-weekday-morning podcast "Before Breakfast" and also co-hosts "Best of Both Worlds" with Sarah Hart-Unger. She lives outside Philadelphia with her husband and five children. Laura explains: How to create a "resilient" schedule How to start small with prioritizing the more important things What keeps

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35:45

Fresh Take: Kate Rope, STRONG AS A GIRL

What Fresh Hell: Laughing in the Face of Motherhood |... ·

2025/10/17

Amy and Margaret speak with Kate Rope, award-winning journalist and author of STRONG AS A GIRL: Your Guide to Raising Girls Who Know, Stand Up For, and Take Care of Themselves. Together, they unpack the unique challenges and opportunities facing today’s girls—from body image and social media to perfectionism, mental health, and the pressure to be “kind” at their own expense.Kate shares practical strategies for raising confident, resilient daughters who trust their inner voice, understand consent,

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45:17

When Stress Becomes Burnout (and How to Tell the...

What Fresh Hell: Laughing in the Face of Motherhood |... ·

2025/10/15

In this episode, Amy and Margaret explore the crucial distinction between stress and burnout—two experiences that often blur together in the chaos of parenting, but which are very different in presentation and the attention they require. Stress might be unavoidable, but it can also be motivational and lead to further growth. But when stress becomes constant and unresolved, it turns into burnout: exhaustion, disconnection, cynicism, and the feeling that nothing you do matters. Together, they

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47:24

DEEP DIVE: 8 Ways to Make Better Decisions

What Fresh Hell: Laughing in the Face of Motherhood |... ·

2025/10/13

There is no magic formula to making the perfect decision every time, but there are philosophical principles, or "razors," you can use to pare down your options and see your problem more clearly. These razors can cut through the clutter of complexity and help us see the forest for the trees. And while they weren't designed with parents in mind, they can come in pretty handy! Starting with the most famous, Occam’s Razor, we discuss how paring away unlikely hypotheticals leads to the most accurate

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38:31

Fresh Take: Jean Twenge, 10 RULES FOR RAISING KIDS IN...

What Fresh Hell: Laughing in the Face of Motherhood |... ·

2025/10/10

Amy and Margaret sit down with Dr. Jean Twenge, renowned researcher of generational differences and author of the new book 10 RULES FOR RAISING KIDS IN A HIGH-TECH WORLD. Dr. Twenge shares what her research reveals about smartphones, social media, and gaming—and how they impact kids’ mental health, sleep, and friendships. From the rise of teen depression since the smartphone boom, to the addictive power of algorithms, to the everyday battles over devices in our homes and schools, this

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44:55

Mom Worsts

What Fresh Hell: Laughing in the Face of Motherhood |... ·

2025/10/08

Mom firsts? We prefer to reminisce about Mom WORSTS. In this episode we relive some of our all-time lousiest experiences as mothers, from family-wide Coxsackie virus to elaborate homework assignments achievable only with extensive parental participation. Margaret mentions the song "Tim Finnegan's Wake" in this episode, which you can listen to here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRXWWZ74Qe8 We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes

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42:31

DEEP DIVE: What Can We Add? What Can We Take Away?

What Fresh Hell: Laughing in the Face of Motherhood |... ·

2025/10/06

The human tendency to solve problems by adding something is called "additive solution bias." However, sometimes a problem is more quickly and effectively solved by taking something away.In this episode we talk about how "additive solution bias" can play out in our parenting strategies, and how we can become more aware of the times when what we actually need to do is take something away. Amy and Margaret discuss: Why our brains are wired to solve problems by adding things How additive

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42:41

Fresh Take: Suzanne Warye, THE SOBER SHIFT

What Fresh Hell: Laughing in the Face of Motherhood |... ·

2025/10/03

Margaret sits down with Suzanne Warye—sobriety influencer, host of The Sober Mom Life podcast, and author of the new book THE SOBER SHIFT. Suzanne shares her story of walking away from alcohol, the truth about moderation, the concept of gray area drinking, and why sobriety can feel like abundance, not deprivation. Together, they explore how alcohol affects motherhood, anxiety, and identity, and how community can make the journey toward alcohol-free living possible. Suzanne also discusses the

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44:23

When Does "Typical" Behavior Become Something More?

What Fresh Hell: Laughing in the Face of Motherhood |... ·

2025/10/01

Is your kid extremely resistant to the simplest of requests? Or completely impossible to wake up in the morning? Or sure their peers don't like them, despite pretty clear evidence to the contrary? All of these are extremely typical kid behaviors. All of these also have more intense manifestations—PDA, DSWPD, and RSD, respectively— which meet clinical definitions and which may require more concrete support, for both you and your kid. In this episode, Amy and Margaret discuss the amorphous lines

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44:13

DEEP DIVE: Why Women Have Less Free Time

What Fresh Hell: Laughing in the Face of Motherhood |... ·

2025/09/29

A recent report found that the division of home responsibilities is still grossly unequal. Mothers—whether they are married or single—do significantly more than fathers. In fact, the ⁠“The Free-Time Gender Gap” ⁠report found that “simply being a woman is linked to spending more time on unpaid childcare and household work, and having less free time, even when controlling for age, income, race/ ethnicity, parental status, and marital status." What does it mean for women to have less free time, and

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35:48

Fresh Take: Carla Ciccone, NOWHERE GIRL

What Fresh Hell: Laughing in the Face of Motherhood |... ·

2025/09/26

What happens when you finally, as an adult, understand for the first time that your brain has been wired differently all along? Writer and mother Carla Ciccone joins Amy and Margaret to discuss her memoir NOWHERE GIRL: Life as a Member of ADHD’s Lost Generation. Together, they explore how ADHD in women often presents differently than the “hyperactive little boy” stereotype, and the lasting impact on many adult women with ADHD of having been undiagnosed for decades. Carla shares her journey through

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43:31

The Craziest Things We've Done for Our Kids

What Fresh Hell: Laughing in the Face of Motherhood |... ·

2025/09/24

From road trips to reclaim lost lovies to birthday extravaganzas with six-month planning windows, parents will do just about anything for their kids. Amy and Margaret share listener stories—and their own—about the wildest, weirdest, and most over-the-top lengths we have all gone to make their kids happy. Read the saga of the missing Tortellini We love the sponsors that make this show possible! You can always find all the special deals and codes for all our current sponsors on our

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30:27

DEEP DIVE: Dr. Amber Thornton on Finding Real Balance

What Fresh Hell: Laughing in the Face of Motherhood |... ·

2025/09/22

We've all felt the guilt that comes with taking time away from our kids to do something we enjoy. But if we're always being told how liberating it is to do things for ourselves, why do we have such complicated feelings about? Dr. Amber Thornton tells us how we can successfully balance our lives both as women and as mothers. ⁠Dr. Amber Thornton⁠ is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist and Millennial Motherhood Wellness Coach. She is the Founder of Balanced Working Mama, with a mission to completely

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41:16

Fresh Take: Kate Mason, POWERFULLY LIKABLE

What Fresh Hell: Laughing in the Face of Motherhood |... ·

2025/09/19

How do women balance being both effective and likable? It shouldn't be ours to manage, and yet it is. This week Margaret and Amy talk with Dr. Kate Mason, communications coach and author of POWERFULLY LIKABLE: A Woman’s Guide to Effective Communication.What you'll learn in this episode: Why women often feel trapped between being “powerful” or “likable” The cultural roots of authority and expertise—and how they still affect women today The difference between agreeability and

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309 results

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