Reframing Me - Self-Development & Parenting Teens for Midlife Moms
Your kids are growing up - but so are you. Reframing Me is the podcast for moms of teens ready to reframe family, identity, and self-development in midlife. Parenting teens is hard -and parenting while rediscovering yourself in midlife can feel even harder. Reframing Me is the parenting podcast for moms raising teenagers who are also navigating the transition out of hands-on motherhood, identity shifts, and the search for balance, fulfillment, and self-development. Hosted by Dr. Jennifer Brubaker, a Communication Studies professor, mom of three teens, and intrapersonal communication expert, each episode blends family communication strategies, honest conversations about parenting teens, and self-reflection tools to help moms strengthen family relationships while rediscovering who they are as women. Together we’ll talk about the issues moms face but don’t always say out loud: changing family dynamics, feeling invisible, letting go of control, and creating new purpose. Through research, theory, and compassionate conversation, you’ll find support, strategies, and a sense of community in this season of parenting and personal growth. Join the Reframing Me community to connect with other midlife moms, share your stories, and reframe how you see yourself, your family, and your future. Send emails to jen@reframing-me.com; or on socials: Reframing Me on FacebookAND join the Facebook group Reframing Me: The Podcast Community; @reframingme on Instagram; Reframing Me on YouTube @reframingme on TikTok
Episodes
Thank you for being here today! Topping my list of "50 things that would have made my life a lot easier if I had known sooner:"
Only you need to see your potential. Only you need to understand. Only you need to believe it’s possible. Your opinion is literally the only one that matters. You need to be your own cheerleader.
Grieving the life you thought you'd have seems heartbreaking to me. Three and a half...
We are complex enough beings to experience multiple emotions at once, and as parents of teens - and oftentimes, also caregiving for aging parents - two of those emotions that we're constantly balancing are gratitude and grief. Gratitude and grief coexist because parents are holding two timelines at once: the past version of the relationship that worked, and the future version that has not fully revealed itself ye...
Thank you so much for being here!
What does it look like for you to reclaim a sense of control in your life?
This Jen is Zen episode explores what it truly means to reclaim a sense of control when life feels overwhelming. Rather than focusing on fixing everything or forcing positivity, the episode reframes control as creating steadiness and orientation in the midst of uncertainty.
The reflection begins by acknowledging t...
Right now, many of us are being asked to function normally while living through ongoing instability, fear, and institutional breakdown, and that disconnect is exhausting. If you’re struggling to focus, feeling emotionally overwhelmed or numb, pulling back socially, or finding yourself more irritable or fatigued than usual, this isn’t a personal failure. It’s a nervous system responding normally to prolonged stress.
For...
Thank you so much for being here! The only two people whose opinions should matter are the 9-year-old version of you and the 90-year-old version of you. In this first Jen is Zen episode of 2026 - my 50th birthday year! - I reflect on aging, identity, and why I look and feel better now than I did four years ago despite cultural narratives that tell us midlife should look like decline. Someone I love showed me a past p...
Happy Holidays! Merry Twixtmas! Happy 2026! I am so grateful to have you here!
In this New Year’s episode of Reframing Me, I reflect on Twixtmas - that quiet, in-between week where time has no meaning and our perspective widens. My family’s New Year’s traditions have evolved, making me really think about what it means to grow alongside our children, to grieve what was while embracing what is, and to let traditions chan...
Thank you for being here!
This episode is an honest reflection on feeling deeply connected yet quietly alone – a place many women find themselves in during midlife and parenting the teen years. Moving between lived experience, parenting observations, and relational insight, the episode explores the surprising parallel between teen loneliness and adult invisibility in a hyper-connected world.
Rather than offering soluti...
Thank you so much for being here! Today, I'd like you to think about this:
You can begin again anytime.
Not next week.
Not next semester.
Not when life “calms down” because we all know that’s never.
Not when the kids launch or when the holidays end or when the stars realign.
Just… begin again.
What if beginning again is simply the next breath you take?
The next thought you choose?
The next decision you make without draggi...
Welcome back to the show! I’m so grateful you’re here! And I’m so happy to have my voice back to normal after an icky cold that I may have rambled a bit more than usual – hahaha! But today, we’re talking about something many families do without ever naming itn - recreational arguing. You know the dynamic: nothing is actually wrong, but yet somehow you’re in a debate about tone, or not listening, or why someone “waited...
What if it wasn’t you after all? What if that rejection was a redirection to something better or to where you are supposed to be?
Thank you so much for being here! In today’s Jen is Zen, I’m inviting you to look at rejection through a completely different lens. What if the “no” you got wasn’t about you at all? What if it wasn’t a failure or a flaw or proof that you’re not enough, but a quiet nudge redirecting you towar...
In this Thanksgiving episode, I am extra thankful for you being here! Many moms (including me!) are anxious to have their college students home for the holiday, but that doesn't mean it won't be without its possible challenges. We'll have a conversation exploring the joys and challenges of welcoming college freshmen back home for the holidays. As our families reconnect, we need to adapt to the changes ...
Thank you so much for being here!
You can create your own magic. You can create your own future. You do not have to be chosen. You do not have to wait to be chosen. You are the creator of your own life.
There's a moment that so many midlife moms quietly fear: the one where they sense that their purpose is fading just as their children’s lives are expanding. Being caregiving becomes an identity, and how losing ...
It's the home stretch for my years as a "Football Mom," and I am feeling the feels. When your kids are involved in an activity that becomes consuming of your time, energy, and money, and when we find ourselves on the sideline or in the stands or seats watching day after day, week after week, year after year, there comes a point when it all ends. For many, senior year is that end. But for some, it happen...
This month, the focus will be on gratitude. To show my gratitude to all of you, I've unlocked this November meditation, so you can have a peek inside, and because gratitude is something that you must have before you can receive. It’s not simply something you feel after something good happens. So today we’re going to cultivate that feeling of gratitude for what we do have so we can be open to the abundance of all...
What does it really take to build openness, honesty, and trust with our kids as they grow into teens? It's not by becoming the "cool mom" and loosening all boundaries, but it is by evolving right alongside them.
As kids grow up, parent–child relationships shift from vertical to horizontal -from top-down authority to side-by-side connection - and this change asks us to redefine what authority, influence, ...
In this bonus episode, we continue our weekly series, reading and discussing excerpts from my new book, Reframe the Moment. It's super fun and appropriate because each essay grew out of a Jen is Zen episode, so why not bring it full circle. Today we talk about Chapter 8 - Our Discontent.
Our discontent often comes from our desire to control the situation and to predict the outcome. Acceptance that we can’t do tha...
Welcome back to the show! I hope you enjoy this episode - it's not a typical episode; instead, it's more of a guided walk-through of the ReFRAME process, a six-phase model for personal and identity transformation.
Do you feel like you're not quite sure who you're becoming, but you know you're not who you were? Identity discovery is a fluid, ongoing practice of communication between our past, pr...
In this bonus episode, we continue our weekly series, reading and discussing excerpts from my new book, Reframe the Moment. It's super fun and appropriate because each essay grew out of a Jen is Zen episode, so why not bring it full circle. Today we talk about Chapter 6 - Feeling the Feels.
We waste so much energy avoiding uncomfortable emotions. Whether it’s sadness, worry, fear, or unce...
I hope you enjoy this episode! Teen friendships can be beautiful -and brutal. This episode explores why some kids become “mean girls,” how exclusion and gossip take root, and what’s really happening beneath the surface. Drawing from Relational Aggression and Social Identity Theory, it explains how insecurity, power dynamics, and the need to belong shape behavior in middle and high school friend groups.
The discussion d...
In this bonus episode, we continue our weekly series, reading and discussing excerpts from my new book, Reframe the Moment. It's super fun and appropriate because each essay grew out of a Jen is Zen episode, so why not bring it full circle. Today we talk about Chapter 5 - The In Between. This episode feels a little different — more like a page from my journal than a polished podcast.
But that’s the point of all of...
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