Kid/Life Crisis

Raquel recently joined the writing team at Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, so we're unexpectedly back on hiatus! We'll keep you updated on when we'll record new episodes! Sign up for email updates at kidlifecrisis.com

Katie and Raquel sit down with Laura Norkin, writer and editor with a focus on parenting, to discuss being raised under a red pen, Thomas the Tank Engine (and Percy), lying to our children, nipple confusion, and inner voices. (music: www.bensound.com)

Standup comic Marcella Arguello once wanted to be a schoolteacher with six children. While helping raise her nieces and nephews and focusing on comedy, she swore off the idea of kids, but decided recently that it could be great. We talk about experience with kids, falling in and out of love, strict parents, being Latina and child-free (so far), Uma Thurman, and how men are dumb. (music: bensound.com)

Katie and Raquel chat with Anathea Simpkins about growing up in Miami and on Cape Cod, raising children in New York, divorce, IVF, bleeding gums, and owning a cabin. (music: www.bensound.com)

Katie and Raquel talk with writer and comedian Babe Parker about mean girls, makeup, birth order, babysitting for Slash, animals and babies, and boundaries. (music: www.bensound.com)

Katie and Raquel sit down for their first follow-up episode with Irene McGee, who's come a long way since episode 15, raising her 18-month-old daughter Renie in New York City with her "nusband." (music: www.bensound.com)

We talk with our first anonymous guest about avoiding her mother, being a doula, psychedelics, relationships, gender, and Duran Duran. (music: www.bensound.com)

This week, Katie and Raquel talk with comic, actress and writer LaKendra Tookes (follow her on Instagram, America!) about SNL, Drake, Scary Spice, insta-vestigations, being Southern, young parents, being a white guy magnet, wanting children, and being part of the village.  (music: www.bensound.com)      

Katie and Raquel chat with Katie's coworker Michelle, in town after recently moving across the country solo to start a family. We discuss support networks, Kandinsky references, donor interviews, Grade AA eggs, pregnancy, and taking the leap. (music: www.bensound.com)

Katie and Raquel sit down with Katie "Pushy" Muldowney to talk about roller derby, crows’ feet, grad school, freakout babies, Orange is the New Black, #TheDress, and Baron von Dogpants, dog of science. (music: www.bensound.com)

Katie and Raquel talk with comedian Irene Morales about being from Miami, her prima hermana, growing up with an autistic sibling, therapy, and My Monkey Baby. (music: www.bensound.com)

Katie and Raquel welcome Sharron Paul, standup comic, actress and cohost of Katie’s other podcast, to tell us about growing up as part of an extended family (including Team Sameface), emergency nannying, thinking with her uterus, cat fights, bologna, and LendingSnatch.com.   (music: www.bensound.com)

Anita Flores joins Katie and Raquel this week to talk panic IUDs, the Miracle of Life video, recovering from surgery, the All About Me doll, rude kids, effortless vomiting, and saying I love you. (music: www.bensound.com)

Katie and Raquel chat with comedian and dad blogger (really!) Lauren Vino about fighting in public, parents who are still married, her dad's band practice, babysitting, breaking an engagement, platonic parenting, and her type. (music: www.bensound.com)

Katie and Raquel sit down with comedian and filmmaker Heather Fink to discuss middle-school makeovers, the meaning of family, women on set, and why/why not on having kids. (music: www.bensound.com)

Katie and Raquel chat with comedian, author, middle child and Michigander Mindy Raf about hormones, being engaged to a Croatian, handling ambivalence about kids, and nightmares about Mike Pence conversion camp. (music: www.bensound.com)

Katie and Raquel welcome first post-election guest Leighann Lord, comic, author, podcaster, host, and daughter-on-call. We talk about role reversal, wanderlust, being raised feminist (by a mom who wasn’t), maternal instinct, Golden Girls roommates, our Hogwarts houses, and glass-half-empty living. (music: www.bensound.com)

For their first episode back, Katie and Raquel sit down with each other to debrief over the last few months' whirlwind of travel, world political developments, decisions and babies. (And introducing the new "Live Diaper Change" segment, featuring our special guest host, Raquel's second baby!)  (music: www.bensound.com)

Raquel and Katie chat with comedian Kat Burdick about Who Wants to be a Millionaire, growing up a military brat, getting kicked out at 17, a better husband than none at all, and having her own grandchild. (music: www.bensound.com)

Hi, listeners! Raquel has just pushed a small human out of her body so our scheduling has been thrown off, but we're planning to get back to business as soon as the new baby can sleep through the night. In the meantime, don't forget to pre-order Raquel's book, titled Welcome to the Club, from your favorite bookseller!

Katie and Raquel talk with Lauren Maul, comedian, composer and cat lady, about managing chronic pain, growing up in small-town Nebraska, sharing privilege, and the clean-up song.   (music: www.bensound.com)

Katie and Raquel talk with Luke Younger (only the second guy to do the podcast, because his struggle is real!) about the first six months, being in commercials, watching the birth of his son, being an older brother, and preparing for having two kids under two. (music: www.bensound.com)

Katie and Raquel sit down with Katie’s college friend Jennifer Leigh. For years she leaned against having kids because of a demanding job and genetic concerns, but inspired by her best friends’ examples, the pendulum swung the other way; she decided that she wants to be a mom, and froze her eggs— a.k.a. a “call option” on a child. (music: bensound.com)

Katie and Raquel talk with NYC comedian, singer, ukelelist and entrepreneur Jessica Delfino about blind dates, VHS movies, jail, Mary Poppins, Craiglist, nunneries, and points of reference for our lives. (music: www.bensound.com)

Katie and Raquel sit down with NYC musical improviser Rebecca Vigil to talk about about growing up between two families, winning $100,000, Camp Unwanted, rolling the dice on birth control, and happy childhoods. (music: www.bensound.com)

Raquel and Katie speak with New Yorker cartoonist and author Emily Flake about the battle for sleep, white lies, Sam Goody, cavities, becoming an aunt at 13, and the wave that waits for all of us. Buy her new book Mama Tried! (music: www.bensound.com)

Katie and Raquel sit down with magazine editor and book author Meghann Foye to discuss the online melee around her article in the NY Post, the gig economy, women vs. women, freezing her eggs, and being in the right place to have a family. (music: www.bensound.com)

Katie and Raquel sit down with comic and actress Abbi Crutchfield to talk about being married to another comic, Home Alone, healthy living, confidence, conflict avoidance, and Baby Cobra. (music: www.bensound.com)

Katie and Raquel speak with actor and dialect coach Tovah Close about small-town Oklahoma, the NYC performer hustle, waitressing during  the impending apocalypse, nannying, singleton babies, Raquel’s second kid, and story hour for adults. (music: www.bensound.com)

Raquel and Katie chat with Caitlin Loughlin, a former entomologist and schoolteacher, about going through a cancer diagnosis as a teenager, dissecting grasshoppers, Jimmy John's, army ants, day care, and mosquito abatement.  (music: www.bensound.com)

Katie and Raquel talk with NYC musical comedian/singer Adira Amram about Dutch Sesame Street, home births, growing up on a farm, downloading babies, karaoke, spray-on hair, and a killer quiche recipe. (music: www.bensound.com)

Blair Koenig, author and curator of the hilarious STFU, Parents blog, talks with Katie and Raquel about growing up in Atlanta, marrying her college pot dealer, living the Brooklyn hipster struggle, giving her mom a trophy baby, and feeling like trying for a baby is "throwing herself into a tornado," even though she's always wanted kids. (music: www.bensound.com)

This week, Katie and Raquel get to talk with Dr. Michelle Thaller, a NASA astrophysicist and all-around coolest person we have ever met. We talk about growing up learning dairy science, space camp, the human race as a superorganism, equality in parenting, what we can’t not do in our lives, and accepting ourselves. (music: www.bensound.com)

Katie and Raquel travel to DC to sit down with Sadie Dingfelder, reporter and writer for The Washington Post. We discuss earnest six-year-olds, going from zero to grandma, giving birth to kittens, face blindness, rebellion, and kids' birthday parties. (Music: www.bensound.com)

Katie and Raquel talk with actor and comic Maggie Champagne, who in the past week attended both a fertility doctor appointment and a baby shower, about planning to get pregnant at 40. We discuss escaping her small southern hometown, making it in New York, changing priorities, our deathbeds, and maternal (and paternal) instinct. (music: www.bensound.com)  

Raquel and Katie talk with Tharanga Goonetilleke, a soprano opera singer and TED Fellow who’s expecting her second baby. Tharanga grew up in Sri Lanka before coming to the U.S. to pursue her musical education. We hear about her first day of school on September 11, and discuss being a brown person in the opera house, real talk about labor & delivery, being pregnant and caring for a toddler while physically incapacitated and only allowed Tylenol, and living your life as you like. (music: www.bensound.com)

Katie and Raquel sit down with a mother and daughter, Debbie and Bailie Slevin, to discuss Debbie’s new book, UnPregnant Pause: Where Are the Babies? We talk about bad marriages, grandpugs, Sheryl Sandberg, choice moms, passing on dating, unfair biology, asshole doctors, and validating— and celebrating— new generations’ choices. (music: www.bensound.com)

Katie and Raquel sit down with NYC comic Vicky Kuperman, a newlywed whose GYN, upon learning she was engaged, changed her tune to “you’d make a great mom!” We talk baby pushers, happy marriages, the monotony of pickup and dropoff, advice for women in their twenties, attachment parents, Vicky’s #‎flawless hair and skin, and things that are *not* our favorite. (music: www.bensound.com) 

Katie and Raquel talk with NYC comic Katherine Williams, who’s trying for a baby with her comedian husband (of whom we are big fans). Katherine tells us about growing up a shy tomboy, suddenly losing her mom at 14, and her recent miscarriage; we discuss raising a daughter, staying in the comedy mix, Murphy Brown, and the voice in Raquel’s head. (music: www.bensound.com)

This week, Raquel and Katie chat with comedian, author, and host of NPR’s Ask Me Another, Ophira Eisenberg, who's imminently expecting her first child. We talk being forced to prioritize, primary caretaking, the Finnish birth box, women’s place in society, a destructive idiot vs. a manipulative bitch, uber births, champagne and oysters in the delivery room, and Saw. (music:www.bensound.com)

Raquel and Katie talk with their first male guest: Jason Jude Hill, who founded a film company, GrumpyFILMS, with his husband and business partner. We talk aspiring to be DINKs, coming out (both as gay, and as child-free), caring for a bag of flour, and maintaining friendships with your friends who have kids— and building friendships with kids themselves. (music: www.bensound.com)

Raquel and Katie speak with reproductive bioethicist Elizabeth Yuko, Ph.D., who talks about living and studying in Ireland, female Viagra, artificial wombs, different types of motherhood, crowdfunding, Richard Simmons, bridesmaids, and baby showers. (music: www.bensound.com)

This week, Katie and Raquel talk with Miranda Forster, who’s going through the process of starting a family with her poker player wife. We talk babysitting (of course), George Michael, the sperm search, the Real Housewives, and loving your dogs less. (Music: www.bensound.com)

This week, Katie and Raquel sit down with Irene McGee to find out what happens when people stop being polite— and start getting pregnant. (Sorry, couldn’t resist.) The comedian, writer, podcaster and former reality star talks about her great-great-grandfather Ira, Lyme disease, frowny faces, motherhood without marriage, building a one-woman show while pregnant, and her uterus’s favorite hobbies (endometriosis and knitting).   (Music: www.bensound.com)

Katie and Raquel chat with Becky Yamamoto, New York City comic and writer. We talk about fake babies, being married, only children, mail-order brides, Octo-mom porn, and hatchback Hyundais. (music: www.bensound.com)

Raquel and Katie talk with Nashville native Shonali Bhowmik, a New York singer, filmmaker, actress, comic, playwright... (seriously, the list goes on). We talk about finding your tribe, defining success, being defensive (in a good way!), parents who listen, who'll be there for us when we're old, and each being on our own adventure.(music: www.bensound.com)

Raquel and Katie talk with college counselor Maude, who tells us all about growing up in small-town Tennessee as the youngest of four children, not joining the family funeral business, Barbie's Dream House vs. Barbie's Penthouse, coming around to liking kids (and having a partner who's "clucky" for one), and building her best life. (music: www.bensound.com)

Katie and Raquel visit with fellow standup comic Asie Mohtarez, who's expecting her first kid in December. We talk back-fat, boobs, burps, the pill, dating, parallel lives, and how to be a creative *and* a mom in New York. (music: www.bensound.com)   

Katie and Raquel talk with Lauren Fahey, New York City schoolteacher and Katie’s current roommate, mere weeks before she leaves to move to London with her fiancé! Lauren tells us about growing up helping with her family’s day care, welcoming her younger sister to the family, and some classic teaching stories, interspersed with lots of discussion about Roald Dahl, Lauren’s French Canadian grand-mère, and what ostriches and dolphins have in common (which: yikes). (music: www.bensound.com)

Katie and Raquel sit down to chat with Katie’s younger sister, Beth Compa. A lawyer in New Orleans, Beth has always known she wants kids-- from mothering her Cabbage Patch Kids to babysitting. Over the occasional hiss of the air conditioner, we discuss princesses and castles, negotiating career and family, expectations vs. reality, Lionel Messi, and the parents’ impossible dream of drinking coffee and reading the paper, alone, for an hour. (Music: www.bensound.com)   

Katie and Raquel sit down in midtown with high-powered business lady Nicole Cramer, who, when not running worldwide advertising creative teams, is constantly working on her own projects. We talk growing up with the actual Supermom, finding one’s passions (plural), dating (or not) in New York, raising a child in the internet age, baking her grandma's cookies, and advice for the next generation.