Author Archive

[Podcast #226] The Internet and Parenthood with Jill Smokler of She’s Got Issues

Brave Writer Podcast

The internet has been a great tool for creating community. It has given us ways to connect, commiserate, and even start entrepreneurial adventures. In the 90s, we were just figuring out blogs and message boards. Now, there is TikTok, Instagram, and going viral.

Jill Smokler
Jill Smokler

Founder of Scary Mommy and She’s Got Issues, Jill Smokler joins us to talk about how being a parent on the internet has changed, and stayed the same, over the years. We talk about our experiences with figuring out what stories to share about our kids, and which to keep private.

We also talk about:

  • being an entrepreneur,
  • growing older,
  • and parenting adult kids.

Tune in to the Brave Writer podcast and enjoy the conversation.

Show Notes

Choosing What to Share on the Internet

In the 90s, it was much easier to be anonymous on the internet. In fact, anonymous confessions catapulted Jill Smokler’s Scary Mommy website to fame. Now, true internet anonymity is much harder to achieve, making privacy more precious than ever. As parents, especially parents who write public works, we need to think carefully about what we share about our kids’ lives, and seek their affirmative consent.

Being an Entrepreneur 

Although Jill knew pretty early on that Scary Mommy could be profitable, it took years for it to bring in significant money. Julie experienced the same with Brave Writer. Our advice? When starting an entrepreneurial endeavor, be realistic about how much time it may take to start making more than a supplemental income. Also, build a team of support– this will help prevent burnout so you can stick around to see the full fruits of your labor.

Parenting Adult Children

As parents of adult children, we know that “it gets easier” does not necessarily apply to parenting. Although we now end up with more time to ourselves, we still worry about our grown children. Plus, our worries get multiplied by spouses and grandchildren. If you find yourself struggling with this stage of parenting, don’t worry, you definitely are not alone.

The internet may change, but the fundamentals of community stays the same: Share your authentic self, support others and ask for support, and be mindful about sharing stories that are not solely your own.

More About Jill

Jill Smokler is a New York Times bestselling author and entrepreneur who became an authentic voice for millions of imperfect moms through her Webby award winning blog, Scary Mommy. Launched in 2008, Scary Mommy began as a chronicle of Jill’s stay-at-home days with her children and quickly transformed into a vibrant community of women brought together by a common theme — parenting doesn’t have to be perfect.

Over the next eight years, without advertising dollars and on a shoestring budget, Jill and her team provided the destination for high quality, humorous, sharable parenting content. In 2015 with millions of followers, three books and the top parenting site in the country, Jill became the first “mommy blogger” to sell her brand to a media company. After three years acting as Chief Content Officer, Jill departed in 2018. Following a much needed break, Jill returns with She’s Got Issues – a brand for Gen X women focusing on the myriad issues uniting them.

Resources

Connect with Julie

Connect with Melissa

Produced by NOVA Media

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Try It: Clever Combinations

Brave Writer Try It

Wordplay is a great way to make grammar concepts stick! 

When two words team up to create one, you’ve got a compound word. And compound words offer a lively opportunity for active wordplay.

Let’s make some clever combinations!

This activity is from the Arrow (ages 11-12) for the book It Ain’t So Awful, Falafel by Firoozeh Dumas.

Encourage your kids to combine an everyday noun with a food item, then let your imaginations soar!

EVERYDAY OBJECTS

mail
cat
glass
book
daisy
poodle
wool
chair
keyboard
straw
pencil
desk

FOODS

pizza
steak
mozzarella
anchovy
artichoke
onion
banana
kiwi
popsicle
lemonade
granola
cookie

Print this chart and cut out the words or write them on index cards for easier mixing and matching.

Ask your child: Do you want to

  • smoosh the words together to make a closed compound, 
  • leave a space to create an open compound word, or
  • include a hyphen to hook up a hyphenated compound word?

How would it feel to receive pizza mail? Is kiwi-wool green yarn or a sign of mold?

You can even turn this into a game!

One person acts out the word (charades-style) while the others try to guess the creative compound word.

Wordplay for the win! 

Brave Writer Literature Singles

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When You Feel Like Yelling

Brave Writer

When we raise our voices, we put our children’s nervous systems on high alert. Naturally. Automatically. We are big and powerful, and they are not.

When frazzled, do you resort to shouting?

Research into abusive anger—the kind that stings and lingers and leaves the other person feeling stunned—shows that it takes up to a year to recover. A year—for each incident!

If we stack angry outbursts on top of one another, some kids live in a perpetual state of recovery from anger.

It can be hard to tell when we cross the line into harmful anger. I know for me, it helped when I would start to go down that path and then instead of yelling AT them, I’d yell TO them “Oh no! I’m freaking out over all the shoes in the hallway! I feel like yelling!”

After someone yells, sometimes they feel so much better in the moment that they can hardly remember the content of what they yelled or that they yelled at all. You remind them of the hurtful things they shouted and you get responses like:

  • I didn’t say that.
  • You know what I meant.
  • You’re making a big deal out of nothing.
  • I wasn’t yelling.

Sometimes the yeller will feel badly and they try to quickly reset the relationship by apologizing or explaining. They might say:

  • I’m sorry I got mad.
  • I was just stressed. Sorry I took it out on you.
  • I didn’t mean it.
  • Hey, it’s over now. Everything’s okay!
  • I promise I won’t yell again.

What to do instead.

Honor the child’s interpretation of what they experienced.

Resist trying to “get back to normal” as soon as possible. It can be hard to witness a loved one’s distress but remember, the yeller literally can’t feel as badly as the one yelled at.

Also, the yeller should not expect understanding for having yelled. Don’t seek comfort from the victim!

Apologies alone don’t work. Sitting with the person who was harmed is the place to start.

  • Tell me as much about how it felt to be you when I yelled, as long as you need to.
  • I can’t promise I won’t yell again. I do empower you to walk out of the room and refuse to listen when I do.
  • You didn’t deserve that. I’m going to get help for my anger.

Shouting about LEGO you stepped on or an occasional exasperated outburst can usually be repaired swiftly with an apology. Sustained attacks, routine outbursts, name-calling…nope.

Love to all my yellers and yellees. This is a hard share.

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[Podcast #225] Homeschooling with Babies & Toddlers in Tow

Brave Writer Podcast

Today’s Brave Writer podcast episode is about how to homeschool while you have a baby or toddler in tow.

First, Julie and Melissa talk about daily routines, like finding pockets of time to teach your older kids while your toddler is napping or when you are all taking a family walk. Then they give specific activities that can keep toddlers occupied.

They wrap up by covering a few strategies to involve friends and family, including:

  • co-ops,
  • babysitting swaps,
  • and grandparent-led science experiments.

Show Notes

Find Natural Pockets in the Day

Homeschooling is all about the 5-15 minute pockets of learning throughout the day, evening, and even weekends. Get a feel for the natural flow of the day for your toddlers and your older kids. Is there a time of day when your toddler naps, or tends to be slightly more calm (relatively speaking)? Just as importantly, are there times during the day when you know, realistically, you can’t force any structured learning to happen?

Find what works for you and your kids, and be okay with seizing teaching moments whenever they arise. Most learning happens through conversation, and those conversations can happen any time, even while taking a walk with a toddler in the stroller.

Time-Tested, Toddler-Approved Activities

The cold hard truth is that most of the time you do need to distract the beast baby. Julie and Melissa’s now-grown kids contributed to their list of tried-and-true distraction activities like:

  • dot paints,
  • magnets on a cookie sheet,
  • bubbles,
  • water play stations,
  • a sheet of contact paper with the sticky side up,
  • a soup pot (yes, just a soup pot…toddlers love putting things in things),
  • indoor play equipment,
  • post-it notes and stickers.  

Another tip is to pick certain beloved toys that are only pulled out in situations when you really need to bribe the toddler.

Tap Into Community

Remember, just because you are in charge of your children’s education doesn’t mean you have to do it all by yourself. Team up with other homeschool families in co-ops or just informal, temporary meet-ups. If grandparents are in the picture, get them involved, either with the babies or with the older children. Consider putting your toddler in a forest school, YMCA program, etc. for a day or two a week. It takes a village, as they say.

At the end of the day, just remember this is temporary. Babies grow fast. Just because one year of homeschooling isn’t super shiny and perfect, doesn’t mean that your kids aren’t learning or that next year won’t be better. Before you know it, they will be teenagers wondering whatever happened to their dot paints.

Resources

Connect with Julie

Connect with Melissa

Produced by NOVA Media

Brave Writer Podcast

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Simply Do It

Brave Writer

If you want your child to learn something, try the thing in your child’s presence. Work the math problem or copy the passage in full view. Don’t announce it. Simply do it. Be an object of curiosity rather than a teacher.

Pick something that you would love to do and then, just do it.

Perhaps you’d love to:

  • paint,
  • play with clay,
  • repot all your African violets,
  • run through the sprinklers,
  • quilt,
  • make pancakes from scratch,
  • map the constellations,
  • or learn how to play a new board game.

Do it.

In silence. No announcements, no declarations of “wouldn’t this be fun to do together?”

Rather, wake up and start doing the thing. Your kids may notice. When they do, scooch over. Let them handle the implement, or make a mark on a page, or run through the sprinklers in their pajamas.

Your task is to serve as a participant, not as a teacher. See what happens! You might be surprised.

Open the math book; work a problem. Copy your favorite quote from Emma into a notebook.

LEARN. See what happens.

This post is originally from Instagram and @juliebravewriter is my account there
so come follow along for more conversations like this one!

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