Preparing Our Kids (and Ourselves) as They Leave the Nest, with Christina Geist

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

🗓️ 10 April 2026

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

As kids prepare to leave home for college, we tend to wonder: have we taught them everything they need to know? Christina Geist—author of Before You Fly Away: Life Lessons from Home—shares how this transition can feel like a “parental report card.” Christina's late-night reflections and “mini panic moments" as her child prepared to leave for college became a collection of concise life lessons meant to guide her child toward independence. But the process also turned out to provide a way for Christina to process her own fears and hopes. Parents often harbor fear that things won’t go perfectly once kids leave home. Christina acknowledges that college—and life—will include mistakes, loneliness, and challenges. But those “blind spots” are actually essential. Growth happens when kids figure things out on their own, whether it’s resolving roommate conflicts or navigating new responsibilities. As Christina puts it: “Figure it out. You’re 100% capable.” Here's where you can find Christina: www.christinageist.com Buy BEFORE YOU FLY AWAY: https://bookshop.org/a/12099/9798881612023 What Fresh Hell is co-hosted by Amy Wilson and Margaret Ables. 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/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:32.4	Hello everyone and welcome to Fresh Take from What Fresh Hell, laughing in the face of
0:36.7	motherhood. This is Margaret.
0:38.1	And this is Amy. Today we are talking to our friend Christina Geist.
0:42.1	She is a writer, entrepreneur, and brand strategist.
0:45.8	Christina is the author of the Buddy series of picture books from Random House,
0:50.2	including the bestseller, sorry grown-ups you can't go to school.
0:53.8	Christina lives in New York with her husband, Willie Geist, who you may know from NBC's Sunday Today and MS Now's Morning Joe, and their two children.
1:02.6	Today, we are going to talk about Christina's latest book, before you fly away, life lessons from home.
1:09.0	Welcome, Christina.
1:10.2	Thank you. It's so good to be back.
1:12.3	Returning champion. We don't have a lot of returning champions. You've been with us before, but
1:17.4	today we're going to talk about something entirely new. Right. The last time we were here,
1:21.3	we weren't in this stage of life at all. And now we definitely are, which is having kids leave the nest. So just to level set, my final child is going to leave the nest for college in August. Margaret's first child is going to leave the nest for college about the same time. And Christina, tell us about you. Yeah. So my first child left the nest almost a year ago.
1:45.9	So we are on the other side of that experience.
1:50.1	And we made it.
1:51.8	She's doing great.
1:53.3	But this book in particular kind of percolated for me her senior year in high school as I started to have these, I don't know what to call
	...

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