DEEP DIVE: Ericka Sóuter on How to Have a Kid and a Life

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

What Fresh Hell: Laughing in the Face of Motherhood

Kids & Family, Comedy, Parenting

4.8 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 8 September 2025

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Ericka Sóuter has over 20 years of journalism experience and is a regular contributor on Good Morning America and other national broadcast outlets. Ericka speaks to parents across the country about the issues, controversies, and trends most affecting families today. She's also the author of ⁠How to Have a Kid and Life: a Survival Guide.⁠ In this episode, Ericka and Margaret discuss: The greatest predictor of kids' socioemotional wellbeing The six questions you should ask yourself every year The "mom gene" Here's where to find Ericka: @erickasouter on IG and X @soundstrue on IG Order HOW TO HAVE A KID AND A LIFE here: https://bookshop.org/a/12099/9781683644873 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 website: ⁠⁠https://www.whatfreshhellpodcast.com/p/promo-codes/ Get 50% Off Monarch Money, the all-in-one financial tool at ⁠www.monarchmoney.com/FRESH ⁠⁠ invisible workload, default parent, household equity, household equality, gender household equality, gender household equity, mental load, cognitive load, cognitive labor, emotional labor, second shift, work life balance Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, everyone, and welcome to Fresh Take from What Fresh Hell Laughing in the Face of Motherhood.
0:06.9	This is Margaret. And today I am talking to Erica Souter. She has over 20 years of journalism experience
0:13.5	and is a regular contributor on Good Morning America and other national broadcast outlets.
0:18.7	It's her job to speak to parents across the country,
0:21.9	to stay on top of the issues, controversies, and trends,
0:25.2	most affecting families today.
0:26.9	Her work appears on CafeMom, Mom.com, parents, the bump,
0:31.8	and so many more sites that reach millions of parents monthly.
0:35.8	Her book is How to Have a Kid and a Life. We're
0:39.0	interested in figuring out how to do that. So welcome, Erica. Thanks for having me.
0:44.2	Thanks for being here. You talk in your book about the myth of modern motherhood. And I'd like to
0:52.2	start there because I think it's a myth that will sound familiar
0:56.0	to some, but you have some sort of unique takes on it. What do you define as the myth of modern
1:00.4	motherhood? Well, there's this idea that we, when you become a mom, you have to give up everything
1:05.3	that makes you, you. And that's not the intention going in. It's just this role we kind of find ourselves in,
1:12.1	where, you know, we have to put on the back burner all the things that consumed us or that we loved
1:17.5	or that made us who we were. You know, we had romantic relationships. We had friendships. We had
1:22.0	friendships. We had career goals. We had hobbies. We had interests. And for a lot of women,
1:27.0	those seem to evaporate. Correct. And I just wanted to kind of dig into that and find out why. Why do we believe that this is how we're supposed to live, how we're supposed to be mothers? Because it's overwhelming. I think it's the reason why some of us are so burned out and so tired. Yes, we love our kids. We wouldn't trade them for anything
1:44.9	in the world. We always have to say that. Every once in a while, we would trade them for like a really
1:49.9	good, I don't know, night out maybe, but would generally, yes, we wouldn't trade them. I think this is so
1:55.6	true. And for me, I had my first child when I was 37 years old. And I think Amy and I have discussed this because
	...

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