Who's the go-to parent in your home? A Huffington Post article on being the default parent got us talking about who wears the responsibility in our families, and a couple of us actually admitted to being backup parents at least part of the time. We chatted about how work schedules influence responsibility-taking, pondered the impact of adoption and step-families on traditional roles, felt for dads who don't get respect when they're in default mode, and wondered why the parent not in charge of logistics can never seem to remember when activities begin and end.
Next, we looked at the names we're called and the names others expect to hear. Other people's kids calling us mom? Okay. Other adults calling us mom? So very not. We took some time to rant about pet name-calling peeves and agreed that it's important to call people what they want to be called even if you think it's silly. But you can still talk about them on a podcast.
Finally, we shared our recommendations for the week. Catherine was smiling about a New Mom Tech list of "11 Instagram accounts to follow that start your day off happy"; Amanda urged default and backup parents to follow her recommendations on "Ditching Good Cop, Bad Cop: How to Put Up a United Parenting Front"; Nicole pointed readers toward Huffington Post Parents, which is full of interesting topics for parents (and podcasters) even if it is a little click-bait-y; and Terri suggested checking out The Inspired Treehouse and Lemon Lime Adventures for all your snow-day bored-kid entertainment ideas.
Thanks as always to Jon Morin for producing our episode and Kristin Eredics for our happy in-and-out music. (If you're reading this description somewhere without hyperlinks, come to http://parentingroundabout.com for the full recap experience.)