Parenting and Personalities

What if the real challenge in parenting is not about doing more, but about understanding how we show up? 

In this conversation, Kate Mason speaks with family therapist Dr Jenny Brown about the quiet pressure many parents carry to get everything right and the self-doubt that often follows. 

With decades of experience and a foundation in Bowen family systems theory, Jenny explores how a parent’s emotional responses, anxiety, and level ...

What if the "right" path to parenthood looked nothing like the one you imagined and turned out to be exactly the one you were meant to take? 

Kate Mason sits down with Lorena Otes, author of Solo Mum By Choice, dance teacher, and mother who made one of the most courageous choices a woman can make: to become a parent entirely on her own terms. 

Lorena opens up about navigating 12 rounds of IVF, genetic discoveries she never ...

What if the hard weeks…the ones where nothing is catastrophically wrong, but everything still feels completely overwhelming…are actually telling you something important about yourself? 

Kate Mason invites you into one of those weeks. 

A solo episode unlike any other, Kate shares the real, raw, and sometimes messy experience of a family illness unfolding over Easter. Sick grandchildren, worried parents, a husband mistaken for a heart ...

What if the overwhelm you feel as a parent isn't a personal failing but a signal that something deeply human is missing from your family's life? 

Kate Mason sits down with Stephanie Malia Krauss, an educator, social worker, author, and mother of teenage boys, to explore the revolutionary idea of "re-humaning": reclaiming the connections, love, and belonging that modern life has quietly stolen from our families. 

S...

What if the moment your child stops believing isn't an ending… but the beginning of something even more meaningful? 

Kate Mason takes a warmlook at one of family life's most tender rituals: Easter traditions. 

From the egg hunts of her own Adelaide childhood to the night her son Jack and daughter Cassie discovered the truth behind the Easter Bunnyand the beautiful reframe that followed,Kate explores how traditions shape fam...

What if the biggest barriers to your autistic child's progress aren't the ones anyone told you about… and the solutions are already backed by science? 

Kate Mason welcomes back Theresa Lyons, PhD, scientist, autism researcher, and founder of navigating AWEtism, for a conversation that goes beyond the diagnosis and into the biology. 

Theresa unpacks three powerful areas that functional medicine research has identified as hav...

What if the most powerful personality lesson of your life came not from a book or a podcast…but from a train in Tokyo? 

Kate Mason shares warm, witty, and surprisingly profound reflections from her holiday in Japan. 

Travelling with her family, Kate finds herself using the four temperaments:  sanguine, choleric, melancholic, and phlegmatic, to make sense of everything from Tokyo's train etiquette to the way her travel companions...

What if the words you use every day…without even realising it…are quietly shaping who your children believe they can become? 

Kate Mason sits down with communications expert, author, and mother of two boys, Kate Mason, to explore the hidden power of gendered language in parenting. 

From "be careful" on the playground to "give grandma a kiss," the two Kates unpack the subtle, everyday phrases that send very differe...

Parenting isn’t a performance, it’s a relationship, and the messiest moments might be your best clues. 

Kate talks with family therapist and educator Lisa Taylor about her new book The Perfect Parent Trap and why “losing it” doesn’t mean you’re failing. It may mean an old, tender part of you is getting “ignited.” 

They explore Lisa’s “heartprint” framework (the deep beliefs we carry, like “I’m not enough”), how kids “borrow our nervo...

What if the anger you feel as a mother isn't a character flaw…but a signal worth listening to? 

Kate Mason sits down with Lauren Novak, award-winning journalist, mother of two, and author of the groundbreaking new book Meltdown: Why Motherhood Makes Us Angry and What to Do About It. 

Lauren brings her two decades of investigative journalism to bear on one of motherhood's most taboo subjects: mum rage. 

Drawing on a survey of...

What if the mood swings, the sleepless nights, the sudden irritation, and the loss of joy aren't signs that something is wrong with you…but signals that your biology is quietly staging a dramatic takeover? 

Kate Mason sits down with Dr. Joanna Bruce, GP of over 25 years, clinical director of Myma Health, and passionate advocate for women's hormonal wellbeing, to talk openly about perimenopause and menopause. 

Together they ...

What if an autism diagnosis could actually open doors instead of closing them? 

Kate Mason speaks with Dr. Theresa Lyons—a Yale-trained chemist and autism expert—about how her daughter’s diagnosis completely transformed her personal and professional life. 

Drawing on her background in pharmaceutical research and medical strategy, Theresa refused to accept outdated assumptions and instead turned to the latest science for answers. 

She ...

What if the key to being heard isn’t changing who you are but learning how to be powerfully likeable without apology?

Kate Mason sits down with another Kate Mason—executive communications coach, world champion debater, and author of Powerfully Likeable, to unpack the invisible dynamics of communication, particularly for women navigating work, parenting, and presence. 

Together, they explore why women often feel the need to adjust the...

What happens when a baby changes everything... except one partner's life?

Kate Mason welcomes Amy Taylor-Kabbaz, author of Mama Rising, for a raw, insightful dive into the invisible shifts parenthood brings to relationships. 

Amy unpacks the silent resentment many new mothers feel when their worlds are upended while their partners’ routines stay largely intact.

Together, they explore the mental load, the myth of maternal instinct...

Burnout does not arrive with a bang. It whispers until your body screams. 

Kate sits down with Sinja Hallam to explore what it really means to move from surviving to thriving. 

Sinja shares her remarkable journey from Germany to South Africa to Australia, her rise through high pressure global leadership roles, and the moment her body forced her to stop. 

Through stories of career success, motherhood, burnout and recovery, this convers...

What if the problem is not your personality, but what happens when it takes the wheel without supervision? 

Kate Mason walks listeners through the four classic temperament styles and reframes New Year growth as awareness rather than self-correction. 

She explores how the sanguine thrives with intentional connection instead of overcommitment, how the choleric’s drive can turn into pressure without awareness, how the melancholic’s care...

Is your child's “healthy” snack actually hurting their health? 

Kate Mason welcomes back Mandy Sacher to expose the shocking truth behind food labels, Australia's Health Star Rating system, and the hidden dangers of ultra-processed foods. 

With over two decades of experience in children’s nutrition and a background in investigative journalism, Mandy breaks down how misleading marketing tactics are manipulating parents—and h...

What if becoming a mother wasn’t just a role, but a complete identity shift? 

Kate Mason sits down with journalist-turned-coach Amy Taylor-Kabbaz to dive deep into the transformation that women experience when they enter motherhood, a transformation called matrescence.

Amy shares her personal story of burnout, identity loss, and the emotional upheaval that came with trying to be the woman she was before children. 

From postpartum stru...

Christmas can bring up deep emotions, powerful memories, and the challenge of balancing tradition with change.

Kate Mason opens up a thoughtful and moving conversation about what the festive season really means to different people. Through a series of deeply personal stories from guests around the world, this episode explores how families celebrate, mourn, adapt, and create meaningful holiday moments. 

From honoring loved ones who ar...