Model Minority Moms

As young girls, we all struggled with body image issues or eating disorders, so how did pregnancy and postpartum affect how we see our physical self? How have conflicting messages about beauty and body image from our Asian elders and the influence of pop culture influenced how our self-confidence? And how can we develop a more grounded sense of our own beauty and pass that on to our mixed-race kids?

Hate it or love it, "tiger parenting" has become a byword for Asian-American moms in the last decade. We share our opinions on what we think tiger parenting actually is, and how it differs from other parenting philosophies, like "free-range parenting". We dig into how racial and socio-economic dynamics impact people's perceptions of parenting philosophies, and how we struggle to define what it means for our children to "succeed". Link to the resources mentioned in this episode are here: https://modelminoritymoms.com/season-2-episode-6-free-range-tiger-parenting-is-our-thing/

Confessional time - we go into the deep recesses of our childhood to evaluate how safe we felt with our parents, and whether we were emotionally attached to our parents in a healthy way. We talk about attachment theory, which says that our childhood relationships with our parents impact our whole lives. Does being poorly attached as a child ourselves doom us to a poor attachment relationship with our kids? Link to resources we mention in the episode: https://modelminoritymoms.com/season-2-episode-5-so-whats-your-attachment-style/

Motherhood can be really hard. Like tired-to-the-bone/cry-in-the-bathroom/scream-into-my-pillow hard. So, why have kids at all? It wasn't our dream-since-forever to have kids, and yet, now that we're moms, we can't imagine not having our children. We share stories about how parenting our kids teaches us to live fully in the present, gives us moments of matchless delight, pushes us to grow, and allows us to experience a love we've never known - cliche but absolutely true. 

Fertility can be kind of a paradox - sometimes it seems like getting pregnant is so easy (it even happens by accident!) but sometimes despite our very best efforts, it can take a ton of time, money, and our emotional and physical energy with no guarantee of a baby. With more and more women choosing to delay motherhood to make time for careers and other interests, complex fertility journeys are becoming more common. We share our own fertility journeys and talk to Sarah LaFleur, founder and CEO of M.M.LaFleur, a company she founded in 2013 to help women take the work out of dressing for work. Sarah previously talked to Marie Claire's Editor-in-Chief Sally Holmes about her multi-year fertility journey and discusses it with us on this episode.

Our striving for achievement keeps us functioning most of the time but we've all experienced times when we've approached meltdowns. In this episode, we talk about our breaking points that led us to therapy, the stigma of meds, and the critical role our partners play in our well-being. We share ways we get unstuck, fears of how our kids will perceive our low periods, and ways to befriend the inner critic when it all seems too much. We may never *not* feel overwhelmed and anxious, but we have come up with small steps that help get us moving again. We reference a lot of books and other tools that we've found helpful - we've provided more details here: https://modelminoritymoms.com/season-2-episode-3-mental-health-im-fine-until-im-not-fine/

The obsession about putting our kids in the "right" school so they can have the "best" outcomes can put us in dangerous territory real fast (with a nerve-wracking spreadsheet!). Our immigrant parents wanted better for us so is it wrong to want better for our kids? And what is the end game in all of this? Early childhood education can heavily influence a kid's future so the pressure is on to choose the "best" school. In this episode, we share what we're thinking about as our kiddos start formal schooling in a few years. What environment will make them the most resilient, secure in their non-white identities, and not be hypocritical of our social justice values? How do we decide what is "good" for our child without too much navel gazing and expensive tuition? And perhaps most difficult and most important, how do we balance being supportive parents without pushing them to the edge?  Follow us on Instagram for snappy sound bites you can read when you're waiting in line @modelminoritymoms. Do you have an episode suggestion or want to partner with us? Send us a short note at modelminoritymoms@gmail.comhools

Our embarrassing turn-our-cheeks-pink first name snafu and how we landed on our podcast name today.

Cautiously unpacking anti-blackness with our Asian parents, microaggressions we get as Asian women, and remembering the Atlanta Spa Shootings. We're tired of being Othered -- within our families and in the world.

We scream into a pillow about the invisible labor of running the household, the impossible standards of instagram moms, and the confusion of being a good feminist. The social contract of women is messy with a capital M.