Hi SweetSmarties! Here's the second part of my interview with Dr. Judy Y. Chu!

As you'll hear in the prologue I recorded for you, last episode we talked about my connection to her work, her background and path to it, her study observations regarding the gender socialization of a group of young boys from pre-Kindergarten to Kindergarten and then briefly in 1st and 3rd grade, and how human qualities are restrictively and inaccurately gendered, wishing they wouldn't be at all, and instead seen as available and potentially applicable to everyone, depending on what each individual discovers is true for them. :)

In this episode, we discuss practical ways to free yourself of these restrictions, or at least reduce the pressure you may feel to conform to societal norms, and then we talk about some of my Sarah Lawrence education, including one of my favorite conference projects I ever did. 🤓

I hope you enjoy listening to our conversation, and that you find the experience beneficial as always. 😇

Thank you so much for being here, and I look forward to speaking to you next time! 💖

Hi SweetSmarties, I'm so excited to share my interview with Dr. Judy Y. Chu! Her work is really important to me, and her book, When Boys Become Boys: Development, Relationships, & Masculinity is my favorite of all the literary sources I've read in my Progressive Parenting Project research. She was also in one of my favorite documentaries, The Mask You Live in, by the Representation Project. I rewatched it recently, 10 years after I first saw it, and I still found it very impactful, so I recommend you read Judy's book and watch that documentary, if you're interested in Gender Socialization, particularly how it begins in children and how certain aspects of it can be restrictive.

Our interview lasted over 2 hours, so I divided it into 2 parts, and recorded a little epilogue for you explaining that at the end of this episode. You'll probably notice Judy's and my audio sound really different, and that's because not only did we conduct our conversation remotely, but unfortunately her microphone on her wired ear phones rubbed against her hair and clothes the whole time, so I did my best to remove those rustling sounds. As a result, her voice sounds kind of far away, or like I recorded a phone call on speaker or something. I tried my best to normalize the volume, and align our voices, after editing our audio tracks separately, so I'm sorry if it doesn't sound ideal, but trust me, this is a lot better than it sounded originally. lol

Anyway, in this first part I speak about how significantly her work impacted me, she speaks about her background and path to this field, we talk about our interpretations of Progressive Parenting, her 2 year study from her book, specifically the changes she noticed in the young boys she interviewed in terms of their masculinity development between the ages of 4 and 5 (as well as briefly at 6 and 8), and how we believe many aspects of our humanity should not be gendered, like personality traits, behaviors, emotions, interests, activities, etc.

In the next part, we discuss how to navigate the world as it is, while still striving for improvement, my conference work from my Sociology of Education class, touching on the ideas of Pluralistic Ignorance and the Dyadic Power Thesis, and we end by expressing our appreciation for each other, and how much we enjoyed our interaction. :)

Lastly, my epilogue sounds the way it does, because I'm a little sick right now (8/20/25 when I recorded it and when I'm publishing this episode), so that explains the contrast between the way I am in the interview on 8/11/25. I hope you enjoy listening to this part of our discussion, and the next part I'll release on 8/28! Thank you! Talk to you then! :D

P.S. I remembered during the interview that the linguistic dichotomy I was referring to is Prescriptivism vs Descriptivism, and thought about mentioning it, but didn’t want to interrupt our flow, so I decided to just include it here. 😄

Hi everyone, I'm excited to introduce you to my friend Natsumi Koizumi, who will be at my event, Super Summer Sunday, on 7/27/25, if you'd like to meet her in person! She was a preschool and prekindergarten teacher for nearly 6 years, until the school closed, and she decided to create her own organization called Sumi Zumi Adventures! She offers nature-based sessions outdoors, including exploring plants and one of her favorite groups of animals, insects! She also reads books and does relevant activities with children at their homes. Her business is ever-evolving, as is mine, so I'm looking forward to discovering how we grow, and supporting each other along the way. Please check out her instagram account @sumizumiadventures or email her at sumizumiadventures@gmail.com, if you'd like to collaborate. Thanks for listening, I hope some of what we said resonated with you, and that you just enjoyed hearing our conversation. Talk to you next time, SweetSmarties! :) 💖

Hi SweetSmarties! I was so excited to interview Oona Hanson this month! I have been aware of her work for many years, so getting to talk to her directly was a dream come true! We both have a lot of theoretical knowledge about Body Image and developing a healthy relationship to food, eating, digestion, etc., and while I really appreciate that, I wanted to focus on practical applications during this conversation. We discuss concrete steps we can actually take in our daily lives to improve this, as well as warning signs to help identify more severe issues, such as a variety of disordered behavior. I also asked her for some confidence advice, and she shared the gems of validating our feelings and expressing compassion towards ourselves. If you're interested in athletics, there's some special content in this episode for you that's pretty rare for this show, because it's not a topic I often choose to feature. :) I hope you find our talk helpful, and enjoy listening to us. Until next time my lovelies! <3

P.S. This was a remote interview with some tech challenges, so I recorded a brief addendum explaining all that, and did my best to edit out all our misalignments to improve your listening experience. 🪻

Hi everyone, I got to interview Jennifer Maslar Teer from Beach Cities Literacy, and I’m so excited for you to learn about all her helpful services! She’s a reading interventionist, special education teacher, an executive functioning coach, accountability partner, IEP (Individualized Education Program) advocate, and so much more! We spoke about her background, her path to this beautiful, important, fulfilling work, and then dove a little deeper into the details of how she helps people in a variety of ways. We also discussed how overextended people tend to be these days, and some of the consequences of that, as well as psychological struggles of people under immense pressure to excel, such as the connection among perfectionism, procrastination, self-sabotage, shame, ego, and other complexly inter-related factors. There are so many gems here, so I hope you enjoy listening to this episode, and our conversation benefits you on multiple levels. If you’d like to collaborate with Jennifer, you can visit her website https://beachcitiesliteracy.com. Thanks for sharing our compassionate curiosity, openness to growth, and supporting this project I pour my soul into; talk to you next time, SweetSmarties! 📖💖🐚

Hi everybody, I had the best time talking to Natalie Croswell, Fit4Mom Torrance franchise owner, the second person to approach me for an interview! Can you believe it?! Two now! We're leveling up! :D

We spoke about the value of developing genuine bonds from a place of empathy and understanding, building a beautifully supportive community of connected caregivers, as I mentioned in my title. :)

We also discussed healthy, practical ways to nurture ourselves, and increase our capacity to care for others, while specifying that we don't always have to frame our existence through a caregiving lens.

We're multifaceted people who play many roles in our lives, and we need resources to fulfill all of them, so it's most important that we find ways to replenish what we spend, no matter how we choose to use them. <3

From our conversation, it seems like Fit4Mom helps tend to many of those aspects, from physical fitness to mental and social heath, and beyond!

We touched on so much more, learned and grew from each other, and shared some fun giggles, which I particularly enjoyed. 😄

I’m excited for the positive impact this episode will have, which Fit4Mom calls the ripple! That concept of our interconnectedness really exemplifies how this company cares for so many dimensions of our wellbeing! 💖

Although I haven’t experienced it directly, from Natalie’s account, the focus on relationships, vulnerable authenticity, realistic skill development, and general holistic approach all sounds very commendable! 🪽

I look forward to discovering how far our ripple will expand! 💓

Fit4Mom calls May the “Month of Mama,” and is doing many things to celebrate that!

You can attend a whole week of classes for free that month, using the link to this trial: https://torrance.fit4mom.com/month-of-mama

If you’re a local independent business (in the South Bay of Los Angeles County), you can also apply to participate in their event on Monday, May 12th, 10am-12pm at Charles H. Wilson Park in Torrance, California with this link: https://mom-torrance.paperform.co/

Lastly, you can visit the Torrance location’s website torrance.fit4mom.com or their Instagram page @fit4momtorrance.

Woo, what great timing for this episode publication! I hope you love listening to it, and that it helps you in some way! 🥰

Talk to you next time! 😇

Love,

T.J. 🪻

I interviewed Tiffany Spadola of South Bay Parent Coaching, and we discussed so many amazingly fascinating, helpful topics! We talked about being highly sensitive people, as well as spirited and strong-willed. We spoke about Neurodivergence, Theory of Mind, the Excitability of Giftedness, non-stop active minds that struggle to sleep, the immense benefits of pretend play, and so much more! She’s also a certified potty trainer, so she mentioned that a little, especially emphasizing how different every child is, and intending to remove the shame and blame she’s noticed parents and children often receive during that sometimes challenging process. I loved our conversation, learned a ton, and found it hugely beneficial to connect with someone who understands and empathizes with a lot of my experiences. I hope it helps you too, and at the very least, that you enjoy listening! :)

Here’s her website:

https://southbayparentcoaching.com

You can also join her Instagram & Facebook communities:

@southbayparentcoaching

https://www.facebook.com/southbayparentcoaching

I interviewed Leanne Sargeant from the Wonder Workshops earlier this month, and we had such a fabulous adventure together! We both marvel at the beauty around us, and we experienced a fantastic example of that perspective while searching for a place to record! We first went to a library near and dear to our hearts, planning to use one of the study rooms, but when they were unexpectedly occupied, we roamed around looking for an alternative location. Early on in the process, we noticed this gorgeous bird called a Scarlet Flycatcher! We paused our quest, to admire and appreciate this stunning creature for a moment, which was a fantastic shared experience that exemplified how we prefer to live, and what we intended to discuss in this episode! After traveling all the way to a different city, we eventually settled on an outdoor spot, so this recording has more background noise than usual. I tried to edit it out as well as I could, and I hope it doesn’t distract you too much. Anyway, we loved talking about our aligned perspectives, and had a blast bonding as people throughout this whole endeavor, so I hope you learn tons, connect with us, and find our conversation as enriching as we did. Thank you so much SweetSmarties, and I’ll talk to you next time! 🦋🪻☀️🌈🐚🍄❄️🪼🐞🐌

You can visit Leanne’s website https://thewonderworkshops.com or follow her on Instagram @thewonderworkshops