April 29, 2025 • 37 mins
Laura and Sarah open by discussing topics that people seem to be talking about more openly, including divorce. Listeners had requested a divorce expert, and Sarah Armstrong delivers here as the author of The Mom's Guide to a Good Divorce: What to Think Through When Children are Involved. Sarah has spent years thinking about how to best move forward after this major life change, and shares her wisdom with listeners in this conversation. As a global marketing leader with frequent international travel, Sarah also shares some of her best working parent tips from her newest release, The Art of the Juggling Act.
In the Q&A, host Sarah asks for summer ideas for that young teen phase (12-14)!
Sarah Armstrong's websites:
https://thejugglingact.com
https://www.momsguidetogooddivorce.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hi.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I'm Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist,
and speaker.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
And I'm Sarah hart Hunger, a mother of three, practicing physician, writer,
and course creator. We are two working parents who love
our careers and our families.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about
how real women manage work, family, and time for fun,
from figuring out childcare to mapping out long.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Term career goals.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
We want you to get the most out of life.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
This episode is airing in late April of twenty twenty five.
Sarah is going to be interviewing another Sarah, Sarah Armstrong,
who is a global marketing leader and author. She's the
author of a book called The Art of the Juggling
Act and she is also the author of a slightly
older book called The Mom's Guide to a Good Divorce,
and that is a topic that Sarah and she will
(01:04):
be talking about in the course of this interview. And
divorce is a topic we've actually had people request an
episode on, and it's something we have not had close
experience with obviously, and so we wanted to make sure
that we could address that topic, and I know a
number of listeners have dealt with in a way that
would hopefully offer some strategies, some ways to think about
(01:25):
that are practical for navigating something complex like that. So, yeah, Sarah,
I mean, it does seem like people are potentially more
willing to talk about such things now than in the past. Yeah,
I was just thinking about it. I've definitely seen a
lot of divorce related content out there recently, and I
feel like other topics that previously just weren't talked about
very much include things like metopause therapy and mental health issues,
(01:48):
choosing to drink less alcohol or issues with alcohol, and
then even like choices around personal finance.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
I feel like just people are just getting a little
more open about various things.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Probably some ups and to that.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
You know, I see some things on social media I'm like, well,
I'm really glad that I am not a family member
of that person sharing, you know that the because it's
something that involves the whole family, and so whether you
want it to be or not, perhaps it's a child
of somebody who's sharing broadly on social media, you will
wind up having it be known. But there's definitely a
little bit more openness about a lot of things, and
(02:23):
certainly with something like divorce being as common as it is,
and people navigating life with like kids having two households
and the logistics of co parenting and working things out
with somebody that you are you know, no longer married to,
or dealing with step parents, and all that I mean
(02:43):
is there's so many logistics when their family is involved.
So it's good that people are out there talking about
their strategies.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Yeah, I mean, I think it can be an area
where someone might feel alone, and yet it's so common.
I mean, that's same with all those things I just mentioned,
like menopause, right, like you feel like you're the only one.
But nowadays when it's people are talking about it more,
I think there is solace and like, okay, other people
have gotten through it, what has worked, what hasn't worked,
And also there's a camaraderie there, like I'm not by myself.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
Well, let's hear what Sarah Armstrong has to say about
this topic. Well, I am so excited to welcome Sarah
Armstrong to Best of both worlds.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Sarah is an.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
Author, a global marketing leader, and a mother, so she
is a perfect fit for our show, and I'm so
excited to have you on, Sarah to talk all things
divorce and then also to talk a little bit about
your newest work on the Juggling Act.
Speaker 4 (03:33):
Oh great to be with you, Sarah, Really excited to
be here today.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
This episode is partly inspired by a listener who wrote
in with a question about talking to friends or like,
how friends could support another friend getting divorced, and Laura
and I tried to answer this, but we didn't do
a great job. Honestly, I don't think we did, and
we got some feedback which was we like that you tried,
but could you have some experts on the show to
really talk about how to navigate this tricky territory well,
(03:58):
since it's so common and so needed the support in
this area. So you were perfect, Sarah. You've written a
book called The Mom's Guide to a Good Divorce. Can
you give us a little bit of your good divorce
story before we get started?
Speaker 4 (04:12):
Sure? Sure? You know what I like to start with, though,
is you know, just for the record, I'm actually not
an advocate for divorce, and an ideal world, couples that
get married would stay happily married for the long term,
but Unfortunately, as you mentioned, this is more common than ever,
it's not always the case that that's what happens. And
so one of the things that I want reflect on
(04:35):
with the topic of divorce is that no one gets
married to get divorced, right, It's not like you plan
that You're like, oh, okay, when I get married, and then
I get divorced. And no one gets divorced for positive reasons.
There's usually something that's triggered a divorce. But children who
are part of a family that goes for divorce don't
get to make the decision that their parents are going
(04:57):
to get divorced in their lives are the most significantly
impacted by this decision. So for my own journey is
I was actually my daughter Grace, who's now twenty two
in Fairna. She's graduating from college this year. But when
she was seven years old, we went through a divorce,
and so she was in first grade and I was
(05:18):
the first of my friends to go through divorce, and
she was the first of her classmates and little friends
in the neighborhood to go through it as well. So
one of the things as we went through a divorce
and I grew up with a very happily married couple
as my parents. They've been married fifty seven years this year,
so I know which is amazing and just they are
(05:39):
the true picture of partnership. And so I had a
picture in mind of what marriage looked like. But I
had also seen really ugly divorces growing up. Some of
my parents' friends had gone through divorces that really stuck
with me. And so when we got to the point
where my ex husband and I decided that we were
no longer going to be together, I had said to him,
(06:00):
I have to believe there's a better way to do
it than what I watched growing up. And I don't
want Grace to be collateral damage in this divorce. That
was the whole thing, like what do we do so
she is not cloudbal damage. So we took a very
conscious approach to our divorce process. And then what was
interesting is over the years after a divorce, I had
(06:21):
a number of girlfriends that would come to me and
they had made the decision to go down that path.
And I joke that the girl who never ever thought
she would get a divorce became the poster child for
a good divorce. And so my friends were asking me
for guidance, and so I'd sit down with them over
a glass of wine in my living room and we'd
talk through things, and at the end of each of
(06:43):
their respective journeys, they'd say to me, you should really
write this stuff down. And I said, well, I'm not
a writer and I don't really think I'm ever going
to do that, but okay. But what happened was I
was actually at a business dinner in Mexico City number
of years ago, and I sat next to a colleague
(07:03):
and friend of mine and he looked at me and
he said, Sarah, you're so happy, and I said, well, yeah,
I'm really happy. He goes, but you're divorced, and I said, well,
getting divorce is not a death sentence. I said, I'm happy,
Grace is happy, Max husband's happy. I'm like, you can
be happy and be divorced. That those two are not
something that can't be in the same sense. And so
(07:25):
I just think in our society there's not enough conversation
about the topic of how to have a good divorce, Like,
if you're going to go through on this process, go
through the process and go down this path, why can't
it be that the end of it you're happy, your
children are happy, your expouse is happy. You can have
a healthy relationship with your expouse regardless of what triggered
the divorce, because so again, there's always going to be
(07:46):
a trigger. So I would really love to help kind
of shift that societal perception that a good divorce isn't attainable.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
Walk that makes so much sense. I mean, nobody goes
into the idea of having a big change in their
life if they weren't trying to be happier.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
Well, and you know what, that's the funny thing that's there.
I've had someone say to me that I make divorce
look too good, and I've said, and anytime I mean
that is said to me, I said, I'm just trying
to be happy. You know, at the end of the day,
that's what this is about. You're right, And so if
you can't have that as a goal at the end
of this, then you know, are you doing it so
(08:20):
that you're not happy? That's you know, that doesn't make
any sense. So you're right, that is a goal with
any major change. But it is interesting how people perceive
divorce in the fact that because that is the action
you've gone through, and that's why I say it is
an action getting divorced. Action you get divorced. It does
not need to be a scarlet letter that you and
(08:41):
your children carry around with you for the rest of
your lives.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
That makes sense, and it's an active choice.
Speaker 4 (08:46):
It is an active choice, absolutely.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
So going back and you break the idea of a
divorce into multiple phases, and maybe you can talk a
little bit about your phases and then also the tips
you kind of have for each of these phases. But
you talk about preparing for the divorce. I don't know
if part of that is also like the decision, Yes,
the during the actual change and then post change and
the year of first that ensues once you've made this
(09:10):
big change in your life. Yes, beginning with the pre period.
Can you talk a little bit about your experience and
then kind of your biggest tips for that phase.
Speaker 4 (09:20):
Yes, yeah, So I think you know, when you're preparing
for divorce or you're potentially considering it, one of the
things that I think is most important is your mindset.
And it goes back to what I just said that
your mindset is essential. That you're going into this with
putting your children first every step of the way, and
that is sometimes one of the hardest things there for
(09:42):
people to do, because emotions run so high during a
divorce that sometimes the kids get lost, quite nicely, get
lost in the shuffle. And one of the things I've
reflected on over the years is when you are a
couple and you've decided to no longer be married, you've
made that decision, and that's fine. But your children when
(10:03):
they're in that situation with you and I say that,
we put bike helmets on them, and we feed them
organic milk, and we do all these things to make
them healthy and happy. But if you put them in
a what I consider a toxic situation and you're not
clear on how you want to protect your children through
this process, they can sit in that negative, potentially toxic
(10:27):
situation for months and even years, depending how long the
process takes. And so the reason I think mindset's so
essential is you have to from the very beginning, make
a commitment that you're going to keep your children front
and center and what is best for them at every
step of the way, every decision you make. And if
you do that, I actually think it helps you to
focus on what's most important at the end of this
(10:49):
which is that your children will make it through be
able to be confident in themselves, because I do think
going back to the toxicity, if you don't it can
have serious ramifications on how children view relationships, how they
viewed their view on marriage, and actually even their own
happiness in life. I mean, I talked to friends whose
parents got divorced in their forties and fifties, and they
(11:12):
can still talk about what a dramatic impact it had
on their lives, you know. And I wanted Grace to
look back and have it as like a comment but
not the focus. You know, me and my parents are divorced,
but not yes, because my parents' divorce X, Y, and
Z was how my life unfolded. So I think mindset,
sort of go back mindset is essential. It's one of
the first things that I think you have to do.
(11:34):
The second is really to think about how you want
to put the process in place in terms of obviously
your legal support and your financial view and all those things.
Those are kind of the basics and you need to
do that. But one of the things when I was
preparing for the change, as I call it, was thinking
about how we would manage Grace's life once the change happened.
(11:59):
So it's thinking ahead, okay, and really thinking ahead. So
the example I shares, we actually went to a therapist
to talk to him before we were going to tell
Grace that we were getting a divorce, and he sat
us down and he looked at me to go, Sarah,
do you travel? And I said, yeah, I actually travel
internationally for my job. And he looks at Max's husband
and he says, you travel and I said, yeah, I traveled,
(12:20):
and he said, I travel domestically. He said, well, Grace
is about to become a professional traveler. She's going to
travel every week for the next eleven years until she
goes off to college, and she's going to have to
pack a bag. And I burst into tears because I thought,
that is not what I want for Grace's life. I
(12:41):
don't want her to feel like she's traveling every week
and carrying a bag and all these things. So I
walked out of that session Sarah, and I looked at
Max's husband and I said, I don't know what this
looks like, but I want to figure out how we
avoid Grace feeling like she's a professional traveler every week.
Super interesting, Yeah, and it's one of those things and
so what we did, and I do appreciate some of
(13:02):
the things. I'll share a bit have some socio economic considerations.
But what we did try to do is that Grace
had all the basics at both homes. Okay, so when
she went to school in first grade and she was
going to either mom or Dad's house after school, she
wasn't carrying an extra bag in the carpool line as
the only kid in her class that had divorced parents, Like,
(13:23):
why do you have that extra bag? What do you know?
So I didn't want that for her, So we tried
to have all the basics at both homes. Now I
do joke that somehow all the socks got over to
one house. I don't know how, I don't know how.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
It was probably always the house, so she wasn't in.
Speaker 4 (13:37):
Exact exactly there's socks, so something always migrated the other house.
So what we did, and this is important at least
from my standpoint, is we would have rebalancing days where
I would text Mex husband say hey, I'm at a sox,
I'm at a shorts, whatever the case was, and then
it wasn't by the way, it wasn't up for Grace
at age seven or eight or nine to go into
her dresser and in her closets and figure out what
(13:59):
was supposed to be at one house to another. She
did not choose to live across two homes, right, she
didn't choose that. So it was up to us to
go and to figure out what that was and then
to rebounce. And then we would carry the little bag
of things that we needed to take to their home,
and when we transitioned, we'd handle it to the other
parent and then I would go and put it back
up in her dresser. Again, it wasn't like, hey, Grace,
go put this away, and she shouldn't have to resort
(14:21):
her clothes because she lives across two homes. So it's
a small thing, but it's all those signals to a
child that they're not living exactly like all their friends are.
So we just tried to minimize those things whenever we could.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
That is a wonderful practical tip. We're going to take
a quick break and we will be right back with
maybe more about the during the change phase. All right,
(14:56):
we are back. So I love that mindset preparation and
the practical idea of making sure it's not moving from
one world to the other, but that we have two homes,
we have two worlds that we feel equally comfortable in.
What else did you do or do you recommend doing
during that change.
Speaker 4 (15:13):
Yeah, So one of the other things that I think
you have to realize, especially that first year post divorce,
as I call it preparing for a year first. And
there's going to be things that you go through, first birthdays,
first clients, any of the holidays that you would normally
go through, and you may have family traditions that you
(15:34):
either have decided you want to try to continue or
things you can't continue because of the change in structure
of the family. And so I say that you go
through that year first, and after each of those first
you need to evaluate did that work for you and
for your kids, Like is it something you repeat next
year in year two or did it have an impact
(15:54):
in some way where we'd say, you know what, I'm
not doing it again that way next year. And so
that was something that that first year, I was very
conscious of how we were all kind of adjusting to
this new world and I call it the new normal
of being divorced. So I would say overall we had
some great positives, but my first holiday without Grace was
(16:15):
really hard, really hard. And I looked at it, and
I looked at the dynamics around and I said, I'm
not doing this again this next year, because we were
alternating holidays, so I'd have her like for Thanksgiving, but
not for Christmas or vice versa. And so I made
a decision that I would change my tradition the years
that I didn't have her, and I would actually travel
(16:37):
and not go and spend the holiday with my family,
with my nieces and nephews and not have Grace there.
It felt very strange to me. It's just like, this
doesn't feel right. So I think you have to evalue
it for yourself what works, and then decide how you
want to take those year first into the next year
and which things you continue with, which things you don't.
And then another thing that I think is a very
(16:59):
practice but really an interesting moment that we had during
our divorce era, I should say, is Grace was in
sixth grades, so it was about five years after we
got divorced. And one of the things I find interesting
is that I think Grace should always feel like her
parents are both there for her whatever it is. So
we were going to a parent teacher conference and in
her school, the child actually goes in sixth grade, the
(17:23):
child goes to the conference with the teachers and the parents.
So Grace and Max husband I show up and we
go into the and sit down as a teacher and
we're talking, and about almost nearer the end of the conference,
the teacher stops and she looks as she goes, wait
a minute, are you too divorced? And I looked and
I said, yeah, we've been divorced for five years. She said,
(17:45):
I had no idea. And I looked her and said, well,
it didn't occur to me to come in here into
Grace's parent teacher conference say hi, we're divorced. Can we
not talk about how Grace is doing in school? And
she said, you know what's amazing is there so few
parents they can come and sit in this office with
me for one hour and talk about their child's education,
(18:08):
being in the same room together. She was, it is
very very rare.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
You are right.
Speaker 3 (18:13):
I'm a physician for kids, and there are a few.
And I love it so much, and you're right, it
does make me like, wow, they did this for the kid,
like they may not be enjoying it. I can think
of one family in particular, and they're obviously amicable and
their focus is wholly on their kid. But it is
absolutely the exception rather than the rule, which is really sad.
Speaker 4 (18:36):
Isn't that crazy? Yeah? And that's it's exactly what the
teacher she goes. It makes me really sad that that's
the case. And I said to her, it makes me
really sad, because what's more important than sitting down with
a child and their teacher to hear how they're doing school?
Probably the second second to going to the doctor and
hearing that your child is healthy. Right, And so I
think that's where again, this belief that you can't do
(18:59):
that or that that's something you shouldn't be able to do.
I think we've got to change that because otherwise what
happens that child has to go to two parent teacher
conferences or by the way, and the teacher has to
do two parent teacher conferences, And I think why, you know,
why is that the norm versus the exception?
Speaker 3 (19:17):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (19:18):
Right?
Speaker 3 (19:19):
And the takeaways are like the nuance, isn't it's different
when there's two because then they're not hearing the same message.
People aren't able to like kind of come to a
common understanding, you actually do lose. You lose a lot.
Speaker 4 (19:29):
You lose a lot, you lose a lot. So that's again,
these are just what I would say, examples of what
we have to think through. And it's all the day
to day Sarah, It's all the day to day moments
that I think you have to think about. And my
final probably example that I think I feel very strongly
about is when you have a situation where maybe one
parent might be staying in the home, like why Grace
(19:52):
and I stayed in the home that we had been
in and my ex husband moved to a different home.
And what I talk about is what I call minimizing
the gaps. And we, for example, had a long hallway
of family photos that was interspersed to my ex husband's
family and there were black and white photos. This is
montage I'd put together over the years, and I needed
to give him his photos, his family photos. So I
(20:15):
took it upon myself to get other photos framed. And
one day I sent Grace down the street to a
playdate and I took out this box and I took
down the photos of myx husband his family. I put
up some other photos of us and I put it
all away, and Grace came home an hour later, and
I'm in the kitchen and I hear this little voice
from how we go, Hey, Mommy, and I go, what Zachly,
(20:37):
she goes, the wall has changed. And I stopped in
my tracks and I said, well, what's changed? She said,
there are more pictures of me up there. It looks great.
And she ran upstairs to her room and I stood
there and took a deep breath. I was like, and
the thing is, if I hadn't taken the time to
(20:57):
put other photos up there, and I'd only taken the
photos of my ex usband's family down and left those
little hangers interspersed throughout the hallway, what Grace would be
telling a therapist years later as my parents got divorced,
and my mom took all the photos of my dad
off the wall and left those little hangers.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
And it's probably such a metaphor for other things too.
Speaker 4 (21:19):
Right, absolutely, And so I just think that it's something
we have to be conscious of as our children notice everything.
They notice everything. By the way, I thought that hallway
was wallpaper. I mean, I didn't think she ever knew.
I mean, and she ran up and down that hallway
literally fifty times a day. It would not have been
something I thought she noticed. She noticed it instantly, and
(21:39):
I thought, wow, okay, you know so I just think
these are And again I go back to there's big
things in those little things in life, but a lot
of what happens in a divorce process and then ensuing
days after that is the day to day of life,
and you have to think about the impact those moments
have on your children. And really, I talk about taking
(22:02):
the high road because it may not be what you
would want, right, but quite honestly, it's not about you.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
It doesn't matter.
Speaker 4 (22:10):
Yeah, it doesn't matter. It's about how your kids are
going to look back in this era, in this phase
of life and say, you know what, my parents got
a divorce, but they really always try to think about
what was going to be best for me and my
siblings if their siblings evolved. And I give them credit
for doing that. I know it wasn't easy. I'm sure
it wasn't easy, but that's what they did totally makes sense.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
Well, I'm going to ask you one question which was
inspired by that listener question we got, but we're going
to take another really quick break and then we'll be
right back. All right, we are back, And the question
(22:55):
we had gotten from a listener was something like, my
really good friend is getting divorced. How can I best
supporter during this time?
Speaker 4 (23:02):
So?
Speaker 3 (23:02):
What works? What were the best types of supports that
you received while you were going through this? And is
there anything specifically not to do?
Speaker 4 (23:09):
Oh it's a great question, you know. I think in
terms of what to do, I think as a friend,
I think just being there for your friend and saying,
you know, I can be there for you know. I joke.
The thing you might need is just a near like
someone to talk to, But it might be a friend
that says, you know what, if you can't pick up
for carpool that day, call me in a heartbeat. It
(23:32):
depends on, you know, what that friendship looks like. But
I think it's just being there and having that friend
know that you're there for whatever they need as you're
going through this. The other thing I'd say, and I
tried to say this and sometimes it worked and sometimes
it didn't. But I was not looking for to pick
sides in the situation. Again. I wanted our friendships, whether
(23:53):
they were with my ex husband, I as a couple situation,
or you know, I wanted those friendships to be able
to continue in whatever form and fashion they should. So
I really was like, this isn't about picking sides. It's like,
I just want us all to be able to live
this next phase of life and have the friendships we
had before. So I think that's another thing to think
about as a friend. And then the final thing is
(24:13):
that understanding what your friend wants the messaging to be
around their divorce and then just kind of stay true
to that and honor whatever that is. It may be
that they say, you know what, I really don't want
to get into the details. It's happened, it is what
it is. Others they may want you to help them
to message it into the world so that everyone understands
(24:36):
they're going through this, They're going to be fine, the
kids are gonna be fine, et cetera. So just appreciating
that might be a role a friend asks you to play,
and then just being really clear with each other and
what that looks.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
Like makes sense. All right, But we're going to take
a quick pivot because you also released a book that's
very very relevant to this audience. In fact, I have
a quote from you which said, one of my goals
in life is to show that you can have a
family and a career, be happy in both aspects of
your life, and enjoy each day to the fullest. And
that is like our tagline as well. It's making work
in life fit together and really enjoying both the best
(25:08):
of both worlds. Is where our title comes from. So
clearly we see eye to eye on some of this. Yes,
and this is actually your book that's out, like just
came out, correct.
Speaker 4 (25:20):
Yes, yes, it just came out. It's called The Art
of a Juggling Act and it's a bite sized guide
for working parents. And so it is as you said,
and it is what your podcast is all about. Over
the years, I've reflected in the fact that we learn
about a lot of different topics in school. However, we
do not learn about parenting in school, right, it's not
(25:42):
a course you generally take. We also don't learn about
how to manage our career in school. We might learn
about topics that we might want to do in our career,
but how to manage your career. And then we don't
learn about how to manage both of these aspects of
our life in school, which are two of the most
important things in life that we're going to do right
and importantly trying to do them and be healthy and
(26:03):
happy while we're doing both. And so my goal is
really to pay it forward to the next generation of
working parents that I have the pleasure of working with
every day, and I'm watching them try to figure out
the juggling act, and so I just have decided I
wanted to share some thoughts and shift. What I see
is I see some parents kind of surviving the day
(26:25):
to day, and I'd love to see them thriving as
working parents and really enjoying this journey that you're on
as a working parent. But I know and I completely
appreciate that that doesn't just happen, and it does take
some intentional thought and really kind of actively thinking about
how you want to show up both as a parent
(26:45):
and in your work in the day to day in
a way where you can try to do both well.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
And your book has a manual feel to it to me,
like it it's like, kind of honestly like it would
be great to give someone when they're pregnant if they planning,
because it's sort of like goes step by step everything
from family traditions to setting boundaries to like all these things,
and it is one take, like it's your take, but
at the same time, like this is hard to find
in the cultural geist. And I also like that you
(27:12):
mentioned it is for parents. It's not for moms, it's
us all parents.
Speaker 4 (27:16):
It's for all parents. Yes, it's for all parents. And
actually both of my books are written in a very
specific way Sarah's. They're called guides for a reason that
they're in bite sized pieces and every topic is a
paragraph for a page. So in the Juggling Act book,
I have one hundred and forty topics outlined in the
Mom's Guide for a Good Divorce of one hundred and
eighty five, and the table of contents is outlined topic
(27:38):
by topic, So if you just want to go in
and look for the topic that might be something you're
thinking through, you can just read that page. One of
the things that I say in general is as working parents,
we don't have time to really read a book. Let's
be clear, like that is not something that is generally.
Speaker 3 (27:56):
Laura might push back on that a little bit.
Speaker 4 (27:59):
She might look back again. I know, well, I appreciate that.
But here's the thing I think that some parents do
prioritize it. Some it's just it's the thing that falls
off to life.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
Some prefer not to or they like to do it.
Speaker 4 (28:08):
These things they like to or they might want to
listen to something right or take in podcasts, different ways
of getting information. So the reason I wrote the book
in this way is for it to be bite sized
for you to take and not to feel like you
have to read it cover to cover. It is a guide.
It's meant to be with you along your journey and
not be something that you just read once and put
away on the shelf.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
So and it does.
Speaker 4 (28:28):
It covers everything from how to set and protect your
boundaries in the day to day, which I think is
one of the most important things we can do as parents,
is really figuring out what boundaries we want to put
in place, both for our personal life and for our family,
but also professionally. And I generally say that you need
to also share those boundaries with the people around you,
(28:51):
because if you don't share the boundaries that you set
for yourself, people will walk all over them in a heartbeat.
And the only way they can respect boundaries is if
they do about them. It's one of those important.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
Things I found that It had a very like and
I liked this a lot, like an unapologetic tone, like,
you know, we're doing this and we're going to have
to think through it, and we should try to not
go down the guilt road because there's not really a
reason or role for that, and here are lots of
ways in which you can make it work.
Speaker 4 (29:19):
Absolutely, yeah, and it is. It's meant to be very practical.
And you're right, a bit of unapologetic.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
That's right, you know, a good way, in a good way.
Speaker 4 (29:27):
Yeah. One of my favorite sayings to Grace as she
was growing up is Mom's doing the best I can,
you know, doing the best I can. And so that
was like my little mantra that I would say to
her because there were days that things weren't going quite
as planned, and I'd say, in any given week, there's
things that don't go quite as planned. And so the
ability to flex and say, you know what, we did
(29:48):
the best we could in that moment is I think
something that's really important. And sometimes I think we all
have set such a high bar for ourselves in terms
of how everything is supposed to go and how everything
is supposed to look and how and I think it
is a matter of us giving ourselves the race to
know that we're doing the best we can as we're
(30:11):
trying to manage to struggling at.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
I love that that ending sentence, especially because your daughter's
name is great. Yes, and we always do. Sorry I
didn't even warn you about this, but we always have
a segment in each episode called Love of the Week
where you share something that is bringing you joy. It
can be anything off the top of the head. It
can be a product that you bought. It can be
(30:34):
a scent that you smelled outside, it can be anything. Okay,
I can go first, just to just to give you
a minute. My love of the week is that I
got a new laptop after six years of having one.
It was a MacBook Pro and I really loved that
machine except the keyboard never actually worked, or maybe it
worked in the very beginning, but the key is stuck
(30:55):
and I just dealt with it for year after year
after year, and honestly, it's not until I have this
new one that I'm like, Wow, typing's really easy. It
was like introducing typos where there weren't any, and I
just put up with it. So loving my new MacBook
Air that seems to not have the same keyboard at all.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
I love that.
Speaker 4 (31:13):
Okay, I might take a slightly different angle, but a
love for me this week is Grace and I were
just talking the other night. She is graduating from college,
which is a very very big deal, and she is,
you know, embarking on this process of interviewing for jobs
and finding her path. And I think the love for
me is just hearing her so excited and confident about
(31:37):
heading out into the world. And I've always said I've
raised her for her wings to fly, and I'm seeing
the wings fly, and so I think for me that's
been That was we talked on. She's in college, so
we talk on Sunday nights and kind of catch up,
and so we had a great discussion last night on
how she's thinking about things, and you know, and it's
(31:58):
at a different stage of parenting life when you're kind
of listening and you're giving some commentary, but it's her life,
and so I just love that she's at that stage
and that we're able to kind of talk through things
as she's thinking through it. So I'd say that's that's
my love of the week was our conversation about kind
of this next phase and all that she's thinking through.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
I love that.
Speaker 3 (32:18):
So tell our listeners where they can find you.
Speaker 4 (32:21):
Great. So yeah, So I have actually have two websites
from my respective books. So the Juggling Act dot Com
is for the parenting book, and then the Mom's Guide
to a Good Divorce is on Good Divorce dot guide.
And you can also find both of my books on Amazon,
and actually the Mom's Guide to Good Divorces in paperback, ebook, iBook,
(32:45):
kindlenook all those as well as an audiobook, and The
Juggling Act is in paperback and ebook I book. I
have not yet gone into the studio to do the audio.
I will do that, I haven't done it quite yet.
And then also you can reach out to me on
LinkedIn is probably the best way to connect with me,
and also have my contact information on both of my websites.
Speaker 3 (33:02):
So awesome, and we will put your sites on the
show notes as well.
Speaker 4 (33:06):
Great.
Speaker 3 (33:07):
Great, Thank you so much for coming on, Sarah.
Speaker 4 (33:09):
Thank you so much for having me. Great to spend
time with you.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
Well, we are back. That was a great interview. Sarah
talking with Sarah Armstrong, the author of The Mom's Guide
to a Good Divorce along with the Art of the
juggling act, lots of tips and strategies. So today's question
Sarah ideas for what to have thirteen to fourteen year
olds do over the summer if they are aged out
of day camp or at least don't want to go
(33:34):
to it.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
So question for Sarah, because Sarah wrote the question, wrote
the question.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
Sometimes these questions are our questions that forced us to
think about what we're saying.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
Well, what's your situation here?
Speaker 3 (33:45):
Yeah, so it's always been easy to find various summer
activities for the kids. I feel like we've generally tried
to choose specialty camps based on their interest, just because
especially in the older elementary school and beyond years, I
feel like that's been more of a draw. And then
there's been some weeks of sleep away. But I just
(34:05):
feel like this is the first year where there's not
a lot of offerings. A lot of camps go to twelve,
and not a lot of them go beyond that. I mean,
overnight camps do, but my kids have not had interested
a traditional overnight camp. I guess I could have done
like two full sessions of the Monday to Friday camp
for six weeks, but that just sort of felt like
a little bit of overkill. Plus she has other sports
(34:26):
and stuff, so yeah, I mean, I'm sort of like
wondering if doing a few hours of gymnastics practices three
days a week will be enough. But the unfortunate thing
is that those practices are at like four not it'd
be wonderful if they written noon, that would be plenty,
but like at four, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
So she's not waking up before noon.
Speaker 3 (34:45):
No, she won't. She'll She'll probably start waking up at two,
and then you've got like a lot of late night
Hours's totally different.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
She'll be nocturnal the rest of you, because eight hours before.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
Two pm is six am.
Speaker 3 (35:00):
I can hardly imagine like I'm getting up and she's
going to bed. So yeah, trying to avoid that, and
just I want to make sure that nobody gets too bored.
So I don't know. For me, I was always like
a cit so counselor and training. I feel like she
would actually love that. So I'm going to try to
see if I can find anything. But I think some
(35:21):
of the programs these days kind of start a little
bit older, so we're in this weird gray zone.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
Yeah, yeah, it is a weird gray zone.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
So my kid in that age range has one week
of sleepaway camp, one week helping out with our church's
Bible camp, two weeks of theater camp, hoping she'll be
able to get together with a cousin for a week.
There might be some friends stuff going on as well,
with friends going places and taking her along, but you know,
(35:49):
there might also be some downtime. My other kid, who's
probably too young to really well, he could get a job,
the fifteen year old, but he's taking two online courses
as a summer thing. But I think we're gonna have
to enforce a certain hours work hours thing with that,
because yeah, there will be a lot of sleeping until
(36:12):
noon two four two. I think you know, we could say,
like get yourself up by ten. That seems reasonable to
be working at ten thirty or eleven, do four hours
of work or five with a break, and then you
can go hang out with friends, do video games until
(36:34):
ridiculous hours. But people are busy during the school year,
so I gain it's not the worst thing in the
world to have some downtime. But yeah, we've sent kids
in that age range to there's some like like CTY
has three weeks summer academic camps.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
That's been something people have done.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
Some of the universities have pre college programs that if
you're a freshman or above, you could go to so
a little bit older fourteen fifteen, but that could still
work for some kids in that age.
Speaker 4 (37:02):
Cool.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
All right, well, listeners, you can feel free to weigh
on on this one as well. Let us know what
you've done, what has worked, or feel free to just commisserate.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
Yes, exactly, all right, Well, this has been best of
both worlds. Sarah was interviewing Sarah Armstrong, author of The
Mom's Guide to a Good Divorce. We will be back
next week with more on making work and life fit together.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the
shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
And you can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
This has been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please
join us next time for more on making work and
life work together.
Hi.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I'm Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist,
and speaker.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
And I'm Sarah hart Hunger, a mother of three, practicing physician, writer,
and course creator. We are two working parents who love
our careers and our families.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about
how real women manage work, family, and time for fun,
from figuring out childcare to mapping out long.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Term career goals.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
We want you to get the most out of life.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
This episode is airing in late April of twenty twenty five.
Sarah is going to be interviewing another Sarah, Sarah Armstrong,
who is a global marketing leader and author. She's the
author of a book called The Art of the Juggling
Act and she is also the author of a slightly
older book called The Mom's Guide to a Good Divorce,
and that is a topic that Sarah and she will
(01:04):
be talking about in the course of this interview. And
divorce is a topic we've actually had people request an
episode on, and it's something we have not had close
experience with obviously, and so we wanted to make sure
that we could address that topic, and I know a
number of listeners have dealt with in a way that
would hopefully offer some strategies, some ways to think about
(01:25):
that are practical for navigating something complex like that. So, yeah, Sarah,
I mean, it does seem like people are potentially more
willing to talk about such things now than in the past. Yeah,
I was just thinking about it. I've definitely seen a
lot of divorce related content out there recently, and I
feel like other topics that previously just weren't talked about
very much include things like metopause therapy and mental health issues,
(01:48):
choosing to drink less alcohol or issues with alcohol, and
then even like choices around personal finance.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
I feel like just people are just getting a little
more open about various things.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Probably some ups and to that.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
You know, I see some things on social media I'm like, well,
I'm really glad that I am not a family member
of that person sharing, you know that the because it's
something that involves the whole family, and so whether you
want it to be or not, perhaps it's a child
of somebody who's sharing broadly on social media, you will
wind up having it be known. But there's definitely a
little bit more openness about a lot of things, and
(02:23):
certainly with something like divorce being as common as it is,
and people navigating life with like kids having two households
and the logistics of co parenting and working things out
with somebody that you are you know, no longer married to,
or dealing with step parents, and all that I mean
(02:43):
is there's so many logistics when their family is involved.
So it's good that people are out there talking about
their strategies.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Yeah, I mean, I think it can be an area
where someone might feel alone, and yet it's so common.
I mean, that's same with all those things I just mentioned,
like menopause, right, like you feel like you're the only one.
But nowadays when it's people are talking about it more,
I think there is solace and like, okay, other people
have gotten through it, what has worked, what hasn't worked,
And also there's a camaraderie there, like I'm not by myself.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
Well, let's hear what Sarah Armstrong has to say about
this topic. Well, I am so excited to welcome Sarah
Armstrong to Best of both worlds.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Sarah is an.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
Author, a global marketing leader, and a mother, so she
is a perfect fit for our show, and I'm so
excited to have you on, Sarah to talk all things
divorce and then also to talk a little bit about
your newest work on the Juggling Act.
Speaker 4 (03:33):
Oh great to be with you, Sarah, Really excited to
be here today.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
This episode is partly inspired by a listener who wrote
in with a question about talking to friends or like,
how friends could support another friend getting divorced, and Laura
and I tried to answer this, but we didn't do
a great job. Honestly, I don't think we did, and
we got some feedback which was we like that you tried,
but could you have some experts on the show to
really talk about how to navigate this tricky territory well,
(03:58):
since it's so common and so needed the support in
this area. So you were perfect, Sarah. You've written a
book called The Mom's Guide to a Good Divorce. Can
you give us a little bit of your good divorce
story before we get started?
Speaker 4 (04:12):
Sure? Sure? You know what I like to start with, though,
is you know, just for the record, I'm actually not
an advocate for divorce, and an ideal world, couples that
get married would stay happily married for the long term,
but Unfortunately, as you mentioned, this is more common than ever,
it's not always the case that that's what happens. And
so one of the things that I want reflect on
(04:35):
with the topic of divorce is that no one gets
married to get divorced, right, It's not like you plan
that You're like, oh, okay, when I get married, and then
I get divorced. And no one gets divorced for positive reasons.
There's usually something that's triggered a divorce. But children who
are part of a family that goes for divorce don't
get to make the decision that their parents are going
(04:57):
to get divorced in their lives are the most significantly
impacted by this decision. So for my own journey is
I was actually my daughter Grace, who's now twenty two
in Fairna. She's graduating from college this year. But when
she was seven years old, we went through a divorce,
and so she was in first grade and I was
(05:18):
the first of my friends to go through divorce, and
she was the first of her classmates and little friends
in the neighborhood to go through it as well. So
one of the things as we went through a divorce
and I grew up with a very happily married couple
as my parents. They've been married fifty seven years this year,
so I know which is amazing and just they are
(05:39):
the true picture of partnership. And so I had a
picture in mind of what marriage looked like. But I
had also seen really ugly divorces growing up. Some of
my parents' friends had gone through divorces that really stuck
with me. And so when we got to the point
where my ex husband and I decided that we were
no longer going to be together, I had said to him,
(06:00):
I have to believe there's a better way to do
it than what I watched growing up. And I don't
want Grace to be collateral damage in this divorce. That
was the whole thing, like what do we do so
she is not cloudbal damage. So we took a very
conscious approach to our divorce process. And then what was
interesting is over the years after a divorce, I had
(06:21):
a number of girlfriends that would come to me and
they had made the decision to go down that path.
And I joke that the girl who never ever thought
she would get a divorce became the poster child for
a good divorce. And so my friends were asking me
for guidance, and so I'd sit down with them over
a glass of wine in my living room and we'd
talk through things, and at the end of each of
(06:43):
their respective journeys, they'd say to me, you should really
write this stuff down. And I said, well, I'm not
a writer and I don't really think I'm ever going
to do that, but okay. But what happened was I
was actually at a business dinner in Mexico City number
of years ago, and I sat next to a colleague
(07:03):
and friend of mine and he looked at me and
he said, Sarah, you're so happy, and I said, well, yeah,
I'm really happy. He goes, but you're divorced, and I said, well,
getting divorce is not a death sentence. I said, I'm happy,
Grace is happy, Max husband's happy. I'm like, you can
be happy and be divorced. That those two are not
something that can't be in the same sense. And so
(07:25):
I just think in our society there's not enough conversation
about the topic of how to have a good divorce, Like,
if you're going to go through on this process, go
through the process and go down this path, why can't
it be that the end of it you're happy, your
children are happy, your expouse is happy. You can have
a healthy relationship with your expouse regardless of what triggered
the divorce, because so again, there's always going to be
(07:46):
a trigger. So I would really love to help kind
of shift that societal perception that a good divorce isn't attainable.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
Walk that makes so much sense. I mean, nobody goes
into the idea of having a big change in their
life if they weren't trying to be happier.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
Well, and you know what, that's the funny thing that's there.
I've had someone say to me that I make divorce
look too good, and I've said, and anytime I mean
that is said to me, I said, I'm just trying
to be happy. You know, at the end of the day,
that's what this is about. You're right, And so if
you can't have that as a goal at the end
of this, then you know, are you doing it so
(08:20):
that you're not happy? That's you know, that doesn't make
any sense. So you're right, that is a goal with
any major change. But it is interesting how people perceive
divorce in the fact that because that is the action
you've gone through, and that's why I say it is
an action getting divorced. Action you get divorced. It does
not need to be a scarlet letter that you and
(08:41):
your children carry around with you for the rest of
your lives.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
That makes sense, and it's an active choice.
Speaker 4 (08:46):
It is an active choice, absolutely.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
So going back and you break the idea of a
divorce into multiple phases, and maybe you can talk a
little bit about your phases and then also the tips
you kind of have for each of these phases. But
you talk about preparing for the divorce. I don't know
if part of that is also like the decision, Yes,
the during the actual change and then post change and
the year of first that ensues once you've made this
(09:10):
big change in your life. Yes, beginning with the pre period.
Can you talk a little bit about your experience and
then kind of your biggest tips for that phase.
Speaker 4 (09:20):
Yes, yeah, So I think you know, when you're preparing
for divorce or you're potentially considering it, one of the
things that I think is most important is your mindset.
And it goes back to what I just said that
your mindset is essential. That you're going into this with
putting your children first every step of the way, and
that is sometimes one of the hardest things there for
(09:42):
people to do, because emotions run so high during a
divorce that sometimes the kids get lost, quite nicely, get
lost in the shuffle. And one of the things I've
reflected on over the years is when you are a
couple and you've decided to no longer be married, you've
made that decision, and that's fine. But your children when
(10:03):
they're in that situation with you and I say that,
we put bike helmets on them, and we feed them
organic milk, and we do all these things to make
them healthy and happy. But if you put them in
a what I consider a toxic situation and you're not
clear on how you want to protect your children through
this process, they can sit in that negative, potentially toxic
(10:27):
situation for months and even years, depending how long the
process takes. And so the reason I think mindset's so
essential is you have to from the very beginning, make
a commitment that you're going to keep your children front
and center and what is best for them at every
step of the way, every decision you make. And if
you do that, I actually think it helps you to
focus on what's most important at the end of this
(10:49):
which is that your children will make it through be
able to be confident in themselves, because I do think
going back to the toxicity, if you don't it can
have serious ramifications on how children view relationships, how they
viewed their view on marriage, and actually even their own
happiness in life. I mean, I talked to friends whose
parents got divorced in their forties and fifties, and they
(11:12):
can still talk about what a dramatic impact it had
on their lives, you know. And I wanted Grace to
look back and have it as like a comment but
not the focus. You know, me and my parents are divorced,
but not yes, because my parents' divorce X, Y, and
Z was how my life unfolded. So I think mindset,
sort of go back mindset is essential. It's one of
the first things that I think you have to do.
(11:34):
The second is really to think about how you want
to put the process in place in terms of obviously
your legal support and your financial view and all those things.
Those are kind of the basics and you need to
do that. But one of the things when I was
preparing for the change, as I call it, was thinking
about how we would manage Grace's life once the change happened.
(11:59):
So it's thinking ahead, okay, and really thinking ahead. So
the example I shares, we actually went to a therapist
to talk to him before we were going to tell
Grace that we were getting a divorce, and he sat
us down and he looked at me to go, Sarah,
do you travel? And I said, yeah, I actually travel
internationally for my job. And he looks at Max's husband
and he says, you travel and I said, yeah, I traveled,
(12:20):
and he said, I travel domestically. He said, well, Grace
is about to become a professional traveler. She's going to
travel every week for the next eleven years until she
goes off to college, and she's going to have to
pack a bag. And I burst into tears because I thought,
that is not what I want for Grace's life. I
(12:41):
don't want her to feel like she's traveling every week
and carrying a bag and all these things. So I
walked out of that session Sarah, and I looked at
Max's husband and I said, I don't know what this
looks like, but I want to figure out how we
avoid Grace feeling like she's a professional traveler every week.
Super interesting, Yeah, and it's one of those things and
so what we did, and I do appreciate some of
(13:02):
the things. I'll share a bit have some socio economic considerations.
But what we did try to do is that Grace
had all the basics at both homes. Okay, so when
she went to school in first grade and she was
going to either mom or Dad's house after school, she
wasn't carrying an extra bag in the carpool line as
the only kid in her class that had divorced parents, Like,
(13:23):
why do you have that extra bag? What do you know?
So I didn't want that for her, So we tried
to have all the basics at both homes. Now I
do joke that somehow all the socks got over to
one house. I don't know how, I don't know how.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
It was probably always the house, so she wasn't in.
Speaker 4 (13:37):
Exact exactly there's socks, so something always migrated the other house.
So what we did, and this is important at least
from my standpoint, is we would have rebalancing days where
I would text Mex husband say hey, I'm at a sox,
I'm at a shorts, whatever the case was, and then
it wasn't by the way, it wasn't up for Grace
at age seven or eight or nine to go into
her dresser and in her closets and figure out what
(13:59):
was supposed to be at one house to another. She
did not choose to live across two homes, right, she
didn't choose that. So it was up to us to
go and to figure out what that was and then
to rebounce. And then we would carry the little bag
of things that we needed to take to their home,
and when we transitioned, we'd handle it to the other
parent and then I would go and put it back
up in her dresser. Again, it wasn't like, hey, Grace,
go put this away, and she shouldn't have to resort
(14:21):
her clothes because she lives across two homes. So it's
a small thing, but it's all those signals to a
child that they're not living exactly like all their friends are.
So we just tried to minimize those things whenever we could.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
That is a wonderful practical tip. We're going to take
a quick break and we will be right back with
maybe more about the during the change phase. All right,
(14:56):
we are back. So I love that mindset preparation and
the practical idea of making sure it's not moving from
one world to the other, but that we have two homes,
we have two worlds that we feel equally comfortable in.
What else did you do or do you recommend doing
during that change.
Speaker 4 (15:13):
Yeah, So one of the other things that I think
you have to realize, especially that first year post divorce,
as I call it preparing for a year first. And
there's going to be things that you go through, first birthdays,
first clients, any of the holidays that you would normally
go through, and you may have family traditions that you
(15:34):
either have decided you want to try to continue or
things you can't continue because of the change in structure
of the family. And so I say that you go
through that year first, and after each of those first
you need to evaluate did that work for you and
for your kids, Like is it something you repeat next
year in year two or did it have an impact
(15:54):
in some way where we'd say, you know what, I'm
not doing it again that way next year. And so
that was something that that first year, I was very
conscious of how we were all kind of adjusting to
this new world and I call it the new normal
of being divorced. So I would say overall we had
some great positives, but my first holiday without Grace was
(16:15):
really hard, really hard. And I looked at it, and
I looked at the dynamics around and I said, I'm
not doing this again this next year, because we were
alternating holidays, so I'd have her like for Thanksgiving, but
not for Christmas or vice versa. And so I made
a decision that I would change my tradition the years
that I didn't have her, and I would actually travel
(16:37):
and not go and spend the holiday with my family,
with my nieces and nephews and not have Grace there.
It felt very strange to me. It's just like, this
doesn't feel right. So I think you have to evalue
it for yourself what works, and then decide how you
want to take those year first into the next year
and which things you continue with, which things you don't.
And then another thing that I think is a very
(16:59):
practice but really an interesting moment that we had during
our divorce era, I should say, is Grace was in
sixth grades, so it was about five years after we
got divorced. And one of the things I find interesting
is that I think Grace should always feel like her
parents are both there for her whatever it is. So
we were going to a parent teacher conference and in
her school, the child actually goes in sixth grade, the
(17:23):
child goes to the conference with the teachers and the parents.
So Grace and Max husband I show up and we
go into the and sit down as a teacher and
we're talking, and about almost nearer the end of the conference,
the teacher stops and she looks as she goes, wait
a minute, are you too divorced? And I looked and
I said, yeah, we've been divorced for five years. She said,
(17:45):
I had no idea. And I looked her and said, well,
it didn't occur to me to come in here into
Grace's parent teacher conference say hi, we're divorced. Can we
not talk about how Grace is doing in school? And
she said, you know what's amazing is there so few
parents they can come and sit in this office with
me for one hour and talk about their child's education,
(18:08):
being in the same room together. She was, it is
very very rare.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
You are right.
Speaker 3 (18:13):
I'm a physician for kids, and there are a few.
And I love it so much, and you're right, it
does make me like, wow, they did this for the kid,
like they may not be enjoying it. I can think
of one family in particular, and they're obviously amicable and
their focus is wholly on their kid. But it is
absolutely the exception rather than the rule, which is really sad.
Speaker 4 (18:36):
Isn't that crazy? Yeah? And that's it's exactly what the
teacher she goes. It makes me really sad that that's
the case. And I said to her, it makes me
really sad, because what's more important than sitting down with
a child and their teacher to hear how they're doing school?
Probably the second second to going to the doctor and
hearing that your child is healthy. Right, And so I
think that's where again, this belief that you can't do
(18:59):
that or that that's something you shouldn't be able to do.
I think we've got to change that because otherwise what
happens that child has to go to two parent teacher
conferences or by the way, and the teacher has to
do two parent teacher conferences, And I think why, you know,
why is that the norm versus the exception?
Speaker 3 (19:17):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (19:18):
Right?
Speaker 3 (19:19):
And the takeaways are like the nuance, isn't it's different
when there's two because then they're not hearing the same message.
People aren't able to like kind of come to a
common understanding, you actually do lose. You lose a lot.
Speaker 4 (19:29):
You lose a lot, you lose a lot. So that's again,
these are just what I would say, examples of what
we have to think through. And it's all the day
to day Sarah, It's all the day to day moments
that I think you have to think about. And my
final probably example that I think I feel very strongly
about is when you have a situation where maybe one
parent might be staying in the home, like why Grace
(19:52):
and I stayed in the home that we had been
in and my ex husband moved to a different home.
And what I talk about is what I call minimizing
the gaps. And we, for example, had a long hallway
of family photos that was interspersed to my ex husband's
family and there were black and white photos. This is
montage I'd put together over the years, and I needed
to give him his photos, his family photos. So I
(20:15):
took it upon myself to get other photos framed. And
one day I sent Grace down the street to a
playdate and I took out this box and I took
down the photos of myx husband his family. I put
up some other photos of us and I put it
all away, and Grace came home an hour later, and
I'm in the kitchen and I hear this little voice
from how we go, Hey, Mommy, and I go, what Zachly,
(20:37):
she goes, the wall has changed. And I stopped in
my tracks and I said, well, what's changed? She said,
there are more pictures of me up there. It looks great.
And she ran upstairs to her room and I stood
there and took a deep breath. I was like, and
the thing is, if I hadn't taken the time to
(20:57):
put other photos up there, and I'd only taken the
photos of my ex usband's family down and left those
little hangers interspersed throughout the hallway, what Grace would be
telling a therapist years later as my parents got divorced,
and my mom took all the photos of my dad
off the wall and left those little hangers.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
And it's probably such a metaphor for other things too.
Speaker 4 (21:19):
Right, absolutely, And so I just think that it's something
we have to be conscious of as our children notice everything.
They notice everything. By the way, I thought that hallway
was wallpaper. I mean, I didn't think she ever knew.
I mean, and she ran up and down that hallway
literally fifty times a day. It would not have been
something I thought she noticed. She noticed it instantly, and
(21:39):
I thought, wow, okay, you know so I just think
these are And again I go back to there's big
things in those little things in life, but a lot
of what happens in a divorce process and then ensuing
days after that is the day to day of life,
and you have to think about the impact those moments
have on your children. And really, I talk about taking
(22:02):
the high road because it may not be what you
would want, right, but quite honestly, it's not about you.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
It doesn't matter.
Speaker 4 (22:10):
Yeah, it doesn't matter. It's about how your kids are
going to look back in this era, in this phase
of life and say, you know what, my parents got
a divorce, but they really always try to think about
what was going to be best for me and my
siblings if their siblings evolved. And I give them credit
for doing that. I know it wasn't easy. I'm sure
it wasn't easy, but that's what they did totally makes sense.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
Well, I'm going to ask you one question which was
inspired by that listener question we got, but we're going
to take another really quick break and then we'll be
right back. All right, we are back, And the question
(22:55):
we had gotten from a listener was something like, my
really good friend is getting divorced. How can I best
supporter during this time?
Speaker 4 (23:02):
So?
Speaker 3 (23:02):
What works? What were the best types of supports that
you received while you were going through this? And is
there anything specifically not to do?
Speaker 4 (23:09):
Oh it's a great question, you know. I think in
terms of what to do, I think as a friend,
I think just being there for your friend and saying,
you know, I can be there for you know. I joke.
The thing you might need is just a near like
someone to talk to, But it might be a friend
that says, you know what, if you can't pick up
for carpool that day, call me in a heartbeat. It
(23:32):
depends on, you know, what that friendship looks like. But
I think it's just being there and having that friend
know that you're there for whatever they need as you're
going through this. The other thing I'd say, and I
tried to say this and sometimes it worked and sometimes
it didn't. But I was not looking for to pick
sides in the situation. Again. I wanted our friendships, whether
(23:53):
they were with my ex husband, I as a couple situation,
or you know, I wanted those friendships to be able
to continue in whatever form and fashion they should. So
I really was like, this isn't about picking sides. It's like,
I just want us all to be able to live
this next phase of life and have the friendships we
had before. So I think that's another thing to think
about as a friend. And then the final thing is
(24:13):
that understanding what your friend wants the messaging to be
around their divorce and then just kind of stay true
to that and honor whatever that is. It may be
that they say, you know what, I really don't want
to get into the details. It's happened, it is what
it is. Others they may want you to help them
to message it into the world so that everyone understands
(24:36):
they're going through this, They're going to be fine, the
kids are gonna be fine, et cetera. So just appreciating
that might be a role a friend asks you to play,
and then just being really clear with each other and
what that looks.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
Like makes sense. All right, But we're going to take
a quick pivot because you also released a book that's
very very relevant to this audience. In fact, I have
a quote from you which said, one of my goals
in life is to show that you can have a
family and a career, be happy in both aspects of
your life, and enjoy each day to the fullest. And
that is like our tagline as well. It's making work
in life fit together and really enjoying both the best
(25:08):
of both worlds. Is where our title comes from. So
clearly we see eye to eye on some of this. Yes,
and this is actually your book that's out, like just
came out, correct.
Speaker 4 (25:20):
Yes, yes, it just came out. It's called The Art
of a Juggling Act and it's a bite sized guide
for working parents. And so it is as you said,
and it is what your podcast is all about. Over
the years, I've reflected in the fact that we learn
about a lot of different topics in school. However, we
do not learn about parenting in school, right, it's not
(25:42):
a course you generally take. We also don't learn about
how to manage our career in school. We might learn
about topics that we might want to do in our career,
but how to manage your career. And then we don't
learn about how to manage both of these aspects of
our life in school, which are two of the most
important things in life that we're going to do right
and importantly trying to do them and be healthy and
(26:03):
happy while we're doing both. And so my goal is
really to pay it forward to the next generation of
working parents that I have the pleasure of working with
every day, and I'm watching them try to figure out
the juggling act, and so I just have decided I
wanted to share some thoughts and shift. What I see
is I see some parents kind of surviving the day
(26:25):
to day, and I'd love to see them thriving as
working parents and really enjoying this journey that you're on
as a working parent. But I know and I completely
appreciate that that doesn't just happen, and it does take
some intentional thought and really kind of actively thinking about
how you want to show up both as a parent
(26:45):
and in your work in the day to day in
a way where you can try to do both well.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
And your book has a manual feel to it to me,
like it it's like, kind of honestly like it would
be great to give someone when they're pregnant if they planning,
because it's sort of like goes step by step everything
from family traditions to setting boundaries to like all these things,
and it is one take, like it's your take, but
at the same time, like this is hard to find
in the cultural geist. And I also like that you
(27:12):
mentioned it is for parents. It's not for moms, it's
us all parents.
Speaker 4 (27:16):
It's for all parents. Yes, it's for all parents. And
actually both of my books are written in a very
specific way Sarah's. They're called guides for a reason that
they're in bite sized pieces and every topic is a
paragraph for a page. So in the Juggling Act book,
I have one hundred and forty topics outlined in the
Mom's Guide for a Good Divorce of one hundred and
eighty five, and the table of contents is outlined topic
(27:38):
by topic, So if you just want to go in
and look for the topic that might be something you're
thinking through, you can just read that page. One of
the things that I say in general is as working parents,
we don't have time to really read a book. Let's
be clear, like that is not something that is generally.
Speaker 3 (27:56):
Laura might push back on that a little bit.
Speaker 4 (27:59):
She might look back again. I know, well, I appreciate that.
But here's the thing I think that some parents do
prioritize it. Some it's just it's the thing that falls
off to life.
Speaker 3 (28:06):
Some prefer not to or they like to do it.
Speaker 4 (28:08):
These things they like to or they might want to
listen to something right or take in podcasts, different ways
of getting information. So the reason I wrote the book
in this way is for it to be bite sized
for you to take and not to feel like you
have to read it cover to cover. It is a guide.
It's meant to be with you along your journey and
not be something that you just read once and put
away on the shelf.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
So and it does.
Speaker 4 (28:28):
It covers everything from how to set and protect your
boundaries in the day to day, which I think is
one of the most important things we can do as parents,
is really figuring out what boundaries we want to put
in place, both for our personal life and for our family,
but also professionally. And I generally say that you need
to also share those boundaries with the people around you,
(28:51):
because if you don't share the boundaries that you set
for yourself, people will walk all over them in a heartbeat.
And the only way they can respect boundaries is if
they do about them. It's one of those important.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
Things I found that It had a very like and
I liked this a lot, like an unapologetic tone, like,
you know, we're doing this and we're going to have
to think through it, and we should try to not
go down the guilt road because there's not really a
reason or role for that, and here are lots of
ways in which you can make it work.
Speaker 4 (29:19):
Absolutely, yeah, and it is. It's meant to be very practical.
And you're right, a bit of unapologetic.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
That's right, you know, a good way, in a good way.
Speaker 4 (29:27):
Yeah. One of my favorite sayings to Grace as she
was growing up is Mom's doing the best I can,
you know, doing the best I can. And so that
was like my little mantra that I would say to
her because there were days that things weren't going quite
as planned, and I'd say, in any given week, there's
things that don't go quite as planned. And so the
ability to flex and say, you know what, we did
(29:48):
the best we could in that moment is I think
something that's really important. And sometimes I think we all
have set such a high bar for ourselves in terms
of how everything is supposed to go and how everything
is supposed to look and how and I think it
is a matter of us giving ourselves the race to
know that we're doing the best we can as we're
(30:11):
trying to manage to struggling at.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
I love that that ending sentence, especially because your daughter's
name is great. Yes, and we always do. Sorry I
didn't even warn you about this, but we always have
a segment in each episode called Love of the Week
where you share something that is bringing you joy. It
can be anything off the top of the head. It
can be a product that you bought. It can be
(30:34):
a scent that you smelled outside, it can be anything. Okay,
I can go first, just to just to give you
a minute. My love of the week is that I
got a new laptop after six years of having one.
It was a MacBook Pro and I really loved that
machine except the keyboard never actually worked, or maybe it
worked in the very beginning, but the key is stuck
(30:55):
and I just dealt with it for year after year
after year, and honestly, it's not until I have this
new one that I'm like, Wow, typing's really easy. It
was like introducing typos where there weren't any, and I
just put up with it. So loving my new MacBook
Air that seems to not have the same keyboard at all.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
I love that.
Speaker 4 (31:13):
Okay, I might take a slightly different angle, but a
love for me this week is Grace and I were
just talking the other night. She is graduating from college,
which is a very very big deal, and she is,
you know, embarking on this process of interviewing for jobs
and finding her path. And I think the love for
me is just hearing her so excited and confident about
(31:37):
heading out into the world. And I've always said I've
raised her for her wings to fly, and I'm seeing
the wings fly, and so I think for me that's
been That was we talked on. She's in college, so
we talk on Sunday nights and kind of catch up,
and so we had a great discussion last night on
how she's thinking about things, and you know, and it's
(31:58):
at a different stage of parenting life when you're kind
of listening and you're giving some commentary, but it's her life,
and so I just love that she's at that stage
and that we're able to kind of talk through things
as she's thinking through it. So I'd say that's that's
my love of the week was our conversation about kind
of this next phase and all that she's thinking through.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
I love that.
Speaker 3 (32:18):
So tell our listeners where they can find you.
Speaker 4 (32:21):
Great. So yeah, So I have actually have two websites
from my respective books. So the Juggling Act dot Com
is for the parenting book, and then the Mom's Guide
to a Good Divorce is on Good Divorce dot guide.
And you can also find both of my books on Amazon,
and actually the Mom's Guide to Good Divorces in paperback, ebook, iBook,
(32:45):
kindlenook all those as well as an audiobook, and The
Juggling Act is in paperback and ebook I book. I
have not yet gone into the studio to do the audio.
I will do that, I haven't done it quite yet.
And then also you can reach out to me on
LinkedIn is probably the best way to connect with me,
and also have my contact information on both of my websites.
Speaker 3 (33:02):
So awesome, and we will put your sites on the
show notes as well.
Speaker 4 (33:06):
Great.
Speaker 3 (33:07):
Great, Thank you so much for coming on, Sarah.
Speaker 4 (33:09):
Thank you so much for having me. Great to spend
time with you.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
Well, we are back. That was a great interview. Sarah
talking with Sarah Armstrong, the author of The Mom's Guide
to a Good Divorce along with the Art of the
juggling act, lots of tips and strategies. So today's question
Sarah ideas for what to have thirteen to fourteen year
olds do over the summer if they are aged out
of day camp or at least don't want to go
(33:34):
to it.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
So question for Sarah, because Sarah wrote the question, wrote
the question.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
Sometimes these questions are our questions that forced us to
think about what we're saying.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
Well, what's your situation here?
Speaker 3 (33:45):
Yeah, so it's always been easy to find various summer
activities for the kids. I feel like we've generally tried
to choose specialty camps based on their interest, just because
especially in the older elementary school and beyond years, I
feel like that's been more of a draw. And then
there's been some weeks of sleep away. But I just
(34:05):
feel like this is the first year where there's not
a lot of offerings. A lot of camps go to twelve,
and not a lot of them go beyond that. I mean,
overnight camps do, but my kids have not had interested
a traditional overnight camp. I guess I could have done
like two full sessions of the Monday to Friday camp
for six weeks, but that just sort of felt like
a little bit of overkill. Plus she has other sports
(34:26):
and stuff, so yeah, I mean, I'm sort of like
wondering if doing a few hours of gymnastics practices three
days a week will be enough. But the unfortunate thing
is that those practices are at like four not it'd
be wonderful if they written noon, that would be plenty,
but like at four, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
So she's not waking up before noon.
Speaker 3 (34:45):
No, she won't. She'll She'll probably start waking up at two,
and then you've got like a lot of late night
Hours's totally different.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
She'll be nocturnal the rest of you, because eight hours before.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
Two pm is six am.
Speaker 3 (35:00):
I can hardly imagine like I'm getting up and she's
going to bed. So yeah, trying to avoid that, and
just I want to make sure that nobody gets too bored.
So I don't know. For me, I was always like
a cit so counselor and training. I feel like she
would actually love that. So I'm going to try to
see if I can find anything. But I think some
(35:21):
of the programs these days kind of start a little
bit older, so we're in this weird gray zone.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
Yeah, yeah, it is a weird gray zone.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
So my kid in that age range has one week
of sleepaway camp, one week helping out with our church's
Bible camp, two weeks of theater camp, hoping she'll be
able to get together with a cousin for a week.
There might be some friends stuff going on as well,
with friends going places and taking her along, but you know,
(35:49):
there might also be some downtime. My other kid, who's
probably too young to really well, he could get a job,
the fifteen year old, but he's taking two online courses
as a summer thing. But I think we're gonna have
to enforce a certain hours work hours thing with that,
because yeah, there will be a lot of sleeping until
(36:12):
noon two four two. I think you know, we could say,
like get yourself up by ten. That seems reasonable to
be working at ten thirty or eleven, do four hours
of work or five with a break, and then you
can go hang out with friends, do video games until
(36:34):
ridiculous hours. But people are busy during the school year,
so I gain it's not the worst thing in the
world to have some downtime. But yeah, we've sent kids
in that age range to there's some like like CTY
has three weeks summer academic camps.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
That's been something people have done.
Speaker 2 (36:52):
Some of the universities have pre college programs that if
you're a freshman or above, you could go to so
a little bit older fourteen fifteen, but that could still
work for some kids in that age.
Speaker 4 (37:02):
Cool.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
All right, well, listeners, you can feel free to weigh
on on this one as well. Let us know what
you've done, what has worked, or feel free to just commisserate.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
Yes, exactly, all right, Well, this has been best of
both worlds. Sarah was interviewing Sarah Armstrong, author of The
Mom's Guide to a Good Divorce. We will be back
next week with more on making work and life fit together.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the
shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
And you can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
This has been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please
join us next time for more on making work and
life work together.
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