Pregnancy in the Spotlight with CNN Correspondent Kristen Holmes EP 415

00:00:09
Speaker 1: Hi.

00:00:09
Speaker 2: I'm Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist, and speaker.

00:00:15
Speaker 3: And I'm Sarah Hart Hunger, a mother of three, practicing physician, writer, and courtse creator. We are two working parents who love our careers and our families.

00:00:24
Speaker 2: 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 term career goals. We want you to get the most out of life. Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura. This episode is airing in July of twenty twenty five. I am going to be interviewing Kristin Holmes, who is a senior White House correspondent for CNN. She just had her second child in January of twenty twenty five, which means she has spent most of the presidential campaign last year into his on their road covering that pregnant. And that's obviously an interesting angle of combining work in life. People often talk a lot about combining parenthood and work, but combining pregnancy work is its own special version of this, particularly if you have a fairly intense job with irregular hours or a lot of travel or things like this. I mean, so Sarah, you're in a traditional job during your pregnancies, you have strategies that helped you with managing this.

00:01:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, pregnancies vary, right, and I definitely think the kind of pregnancy you have is greatly going to impact how much you have to adjust your work or how much is going to impact you. I really only had bad first trimesters. And as I say bad, I mean I think I vomited like once each pregnancy, So not that bad, and that's really really lucky. So for me, I didn't really have to do very much. There was so much more I had to I mean the postpartum and the pumping phase that I could do a whole episode on how incredibly hard it was and the things I did to get through and how stressful and everything. But the pregnancy time itself, I didn't really make any specific concessions that I remember. And in fact, even during like the nausea months, I was like, ooh, distraction, Like the more I focus on something else that's not my nausea, like, the better off I actually am. Even though I might feel like I'm dragging myself through the day sitting on the couch wasn't any more pleasant.

00:02:28
Speaker 2: But again, I've.

00:02:29
Speaker 3: Had residents that have had complicated pregnancies. Some people have a ton of pain with their break So this is all your mileage may vary.

00:02:37
Speaker 2: I do have fond.

00:02:37
Speaker 3: Memories of leading a tour group of residents when I was thirty nine weeks and two days pregnant and being like anything could happen today, And like when I've spoken to those people years down the road, they remember it kind of fondly as well.

00:02:50
Speaker 1: So there can be bright spot.

00:02:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, remembering back to my last one, which was in twenty nineteen. At this point, but I was doing a lot of speaking. This was right before COVID. We didn't know that COVID was coming. But in twenty nineteen happened to be a very speaking heavy year, which was also when I was pregnant with him, so I was doing a lot of traveling. I remember one May speech when I was like newly pregnant or just found out, I mean, almost fainting on my way up to the stage. It was a hot day in New York City. I was woozy, woozy, woozy, and it was not good, but I did it. I remember eating a lot of cinnabon in airports like I was. That was something that didn't turn my stomach, and so I was like, I'm going to eat a lot of cinnabon. I not nutritious necessarily, but if you can keep it down and not feel like it's terrible. I also remember lying in hotel bedrooms watching TV, like being very, very tired at the end of the day because you sort of manage your energy to do what you have to do and then just kind of collapse at the end of it. I was like, Okay, I could just watch the NBA playoffs. I can watch the home renovation shows here lying on my bed and then getting in the aisle seat on the plane. I remember once I for some reason, did not have an aisle seat. I had a window seat, and I was terrible. I had to get up multiple times in the course of this flight. The people were very understanding, or one person next to me. It was one person next men. He's very understanding. He'd like kept being like, oh yeah, yeah, he would like hop up every time I got up, even though there's enough space for me to get past, you know.

00:04:33
Speaker 3: But it was a yeah, that's what it was. Easier to be visibly pregnant because you're last. Please feel bad for me.

00:04:39
Speaker 2: Feel bad for me. Cinnabon's interesting for me.

00:04:41
Speaker 3: It was like salty, like ramen and chips, And yeah, I do think you should honor whatever it is because whatever it is probably a reason.

00:04:49
Speaker 2: Maybe or just I mean, cinnabons are good. So there's that too. You need a little reward for getting yourself through the day. All right, Well, we'll hear what Chris Holmes has to say. So Sarah and I are excited to have Kristen Holmes with us today. So Kristin, welcome to the show.

00:05:07
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

00:05:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, we are excited to have you as well. So why don't you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself.

00:05:14
Speaker 4: I am the senior White House correspondent at CNN, and I am the mother of two. We have a three and a half year old boy and a five month old, almost five month old little girl.

00:05:27
Speaker 2: Awesome. So she was born in what January?

00:05:30
Speaker 1: Maybe is that one January fourteenth?

00:05:32
Speaker 2: Exactly? Are you back at work now? Are you back from eternity?

00:05:35
Speaker 4: Least? I've been back about a month, so still getting my sea legs, even though a month seems like a lot of time, but it's definitely not.

00:05:42
Speaker 2: No, of course, of course, And so maybe you could talk a little bit about your career and how you got started into this. So what drew you to journalism. Maybe I saw you did the official Northwestern and Columbia combo for school, right.

00:05:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I really did know what I wanted to do from it early.

00:06:01
Speaker 4: You know, it doesn't seem like that if you look just at my resume, but I wasn't sure. And my mom had been a journalist, and she kind of put the idea in my head that I was really good at speech and debate and I could turn that into a career in some way, and we started looking at broadcast TV. And I actually spent two years after college going and doing Teacher.

00:06:23
Speaker 1: For America in Chicago.

00:06:25
Speaker 4: So that was part of the reason I went back to school, was because I knew if you wanted like an entry level job, some of these jobs you really needed connections to get and I felt like the best way to do that was actually going down to a journalism school and meeting people who were coming adjunct professors and various people. And that's actually how I got the job at CNN. I met at the time the executive producer of Peers Morgan's show in an elevator. He was with his son, who was adorable, and I just started talking to his son.

00:06:54
Speaker 1: I had no idea who he was.

00:06:55
Speaker 4: He was there for a career fair, but I hadn't spoken to him, and by the end of the elevator ride, he asked me if I had any interest in interning for the show, and I said yes, and that turned into me starting at an entry level position producing in New York for Piers Morgan. And I just really wanted to get down to DC and I didn't know what to do. And I'm not really a risky person, like I don't take a lot of leaps.

00:07:22
Speaker 1: I married someone.

00:07:22
Speaker 4: Who takes a lot of leaps, so I feel like it balances out, but I do not. So I didn't have a formal job in DC at CNN, and I met with the woman who's actually now running MSNBC, Rebecca Cutler, and she was at CNN at the time. Just asked her like what she thought I should do, and she said to take the risk.

00:07:40
Speaker 1: That it will all line up.

00:07:43
Speaker 4: So I had like a very preliminary freelance booking offer from CNN, and I just took it, and I decided I would live with my parents for a little bit.

00:07:53
Speaker 1: They had moved to DC.

00:07:54
Speaker 4: I was raised in Oklahoma, but they had moved to DC and I stayed with them. And then I really wanted to transition to doing on air stuff and it's obviously very difficult.

00:08:04
Speaker 1: It was also a whole different world done.

00:08:06
Speaker 4: I mean, now we do a lot of stuff where we promote reporters who are print background and then put them on TV.

00:08:11
Speaker 1: That wasn't really happening at that time.

00:08:14
Speaker 4: So I beg beg begged for a job at the local affiliate here in DC, weekend cable access station. And first they're like, we have nothing, and then I was like, I will work literally any hours. And I was still freelancing at CNN, and they were like, okay, well we don't have someone at five am on Saturdays and Sundays.

00:08:36
Speaker 1: So for roughly a year, at five.

00:08:39
Speaker 4: Am, I would go into ABC seven, but it wasn't even ABC seven, like it wasn't good enough to be ABC seven.

00:08:45
Speaker 1: It was like their cable access channel.

00:08:48
Speaker 4: And I would take a camera out and I would go to crime scenes and just kind of try to piece.

00:08:53
Speaker 1: The story together.

00:08:55
Speaker 4: And eventually I had this really awesome producer who there who was like, you're not technically allowed to go live, but we really need somebody, so why don't we just like not tell anybody because no one's watching anyway, so you can go.

00:09:12
Speaker 1: And that really started everything.

00:09:13
Speaker 4: So I was working seven days a week, half at CNN, half there, and then CNN told me that they wanted to eventually pursue possibly a career in broadcast, but if to do so, they wanted me to go to the White House and be a producer there, and that I couldn't do any of the on air stuff anymore because I had to be full time. So I did it, and shortly after I went on the campaign in twenty sixteen, and they CNN really followed through. I mean, I broke stories, I was a producer, I was of the top correspondent Benjabacosta, and I did kind of hits some one else wanted to do on TV the weird hours the week, early mornings, and that parlayed into the on air stuff where I went to what we have affiliate program called News Source that's really meant to like def up your on air skills, and I got to cover really cool stuff, like I went to Guam when there was the threat of a nuclear attack from North Korea. I went to the Royal wedding, Megan and Harry's wedding. I did a lot of like very awesome stuff that I'm probably never going to do again.

00:10:14
Speaker 1: I always say, like, this is the only person who does that, like that many cool things with Anderson Cooper so like, but it was really fun and now I am.

00:10:24
Speaker 4: Since then, it's transitioned and I have absolutely loved it, and I've loved covering politics and did the campaign the last cycle and I covered Donald Trump and then they made me the senior.

00:10:35
Speaker 1: White House correspondent.

00:10:36
Speaker 2: Amazing. Well, I want to back up a little bit to this teach for America stint in here, because you were middle school in Chicago. Is that what you were?

00:10:44
Speaker 1: It was like middle school, elementary school in Chicago.

00:10:46
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm very curious if you learned any skills from that that have been helpful in your life.

00:10:51
Speaker 4: Now, I will tell you that there is no job that I've ever done that was harder than that.

00:10:56
Speaker 1: And I remember afterwards, I mean I cried a lot. I cried a lot, and.

00:11:00
Speaker 4: I didn't have any I mean, when I was twenty two, I didn't have any experience other than babysitting.

00:11:06
Speaker 1: I had some kids who were amazing and wonderful.

00:11:09
Speaker 4: But also very difficult, like behaviorally, and I didn't have a lot of experience with that. But the one thing that I learned from that job that has really taken me through the rest of my life is patience. And I think that I did not have an extraordinary amount of patience. My parents didn't really have an extraordinary amount of patience when I was growing up and everything was.

00:11:33
Speaker 1: Supposed to be go, go go.

00:11:34
Speaker 4: And I still remember like the moment that I kind of like changed in my head and I was with these kids that we were in thirteen fifth graders and they didn't know how to tell time. And I was staying after school every day with these kids to tutor them because they're super behind in a bunch of different things. But all of a sudden, I realized they didn't understand clocks. And we sat there one day for like three hours and it just wasn't getting through. And I just remember being like, Okay, let's try it again, and it was just like this moment of like there is nothing I can do in the second to change what is going on other than to keep trying. And I can't get mad because it's no one's fault and I just need to come up with a new strategy to try and make this work for these kids. And I did, and I just kept at it, and it was like this kind of bulb switched off in my head that was like there's no other option but to be patient. And that has just carried through because it's just we live these lives that are so high stress, high intensity, and you sometimes just have to take a moment and be like, Okay, we got to be patient.

00:12:46
Speaker 1: We got to see what the future holds.

00:12:49
Speaker 4: Maybe this is not where we really want to be right now, but like, you got to be patient. And that was the skill set, the greatest skill set I took away from that experience absolutely.

00:12:57
Speaker 2: All Right, Well, we're going to take a quick ad break and then I'll be back with more from Kristen Holmes. Well, I am back talking with Kristin Holmes, who is the senior White House correspondent for CNN. So, Kristin, we have a lot of people who listen to the show who are professional women who are raising young kids. I'm getting very much the sense that being a on air correspondent is not exactly a nine to five sort of Monday through Friday kind of job, which we're going to get to doing that job while during your second pregnancy here, but you also have a three year old, so you were doing all this. You've been doing this job with a young child. You said your husband is also I believe at CNN, so he probably doesn't have normal hours either.

00:13:58
Speaker 1: He's actually at.

00:13:59
Speaker 4: The fire department now he is the chief Yes, he's a chief communications officer for the firearms, so he was.

00:14:04
Speaker 2: He was primarily, but he has moved to a different job now. But still none of this is.

00:14:07
Speaker 1: Like straight regular hours.

00:14:10
Speaker 2: So how have you guys managed that? Like the logistics of child Karen, who's with your son, Like, well, you're out doing random hours and he is as well.

00:14:22
Speaker 4: So this has been like an ongoing evolution and we're still not there. I mean, I feel like I had this realization now with two that this is going to continue to be the evolution of our lives, Like we're never going to have anything that is like a routine for quite some time, maybe when they're a little older, but definitely not for the next couple of years. So what we have decided to do, and this was my husband's idea after I've been on the campaign trail for basically a year traveling and he was spent a lot of time alone as solo parenting, which I am grateful to him every second. Four so they know it wasn't easy that you would get a no pair and it has changed our lives.

00:15:04
Speaker 1: She's not even our primary childcare, but she is a We kind of.

00:15:09
Speaker 4: View her as a mommy's helper, but also she is literally like a sibling to our kids. It has made me feel like I can pay attention to both of my kids and do my job. I feel like it has been a game changer for us in terms of being able to still pay attention to our three and a half year old, who is very demanding, who is just learning and growing every second and I don't want to miss a thing, but also not feel like I've abandoned my newborn, which I know is a common feeling that we have as women because there's so much focus on your older kid and it's like, am.

00:15:47
Speaker 1: I doing enough?

00:15:48
Speaker 4: And so for us, this has been the solution, and right now it's working again. I don't know what works forever, but at this point it took a long time to get here.

00:16:00
Speaker 1: But having her kind.

00:16:02
Speaker 4: Of be able to hold a baby while the baby's still in the room when I can be home, or also be able to run off and take a call when I need to and not feel like my kids are just sitting there, and I'm anxious that for us has been the way that we've really figured out how to manage this and it's been a positive solution.

00:16:24
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:16:24
Speaker 2: Absolutely. I mean we often talk on the show about layering childcare, so I assume me you have something like daycare or primary nanny, like for normal we do business hours.

00:16:34
Speaker 4: Yeah, her normal business as we have a primary nanny and my son goes to a school, and with my new hours at work, I am trying to take him to camp this summer, but then school so that I can work until eight pm. And because generally now I'm not leaving the White House until eight pm, which means I generally am going to miss the baby, which was a hard realization, but like I've mentally gotten there, but it took some time before she goes to bed, but I will get that's I'm with my son. So we have the primary nanny who will be with the baby during the day as well as my son goes to school camp, and then for the off hours in the evening and the weekends we have and no pair.

00:17:13
Speaker 2: Excellent. Well that's what you have to do. And it's like when people often start on their parenting journey, they think like, okay, well one should work, but if you have either parent working different hours, then you need more than one layer.

00:17:27
Speaker 4: It was impossible for us, and really, honestly, I had a conversation with CNN and with my husband and when they offered me the job. They offer me the job right after the campaign, and I said, in order to be able to do this job the way that you're going to want me to do it the way that I want to do it, and be good at it and enjoy it but also enjoy my children, like these are the things that I'm going to have to do. So when I put in my asks for you, I need you to understand that it's coming from a place of not living any kind of lavish lifestyle or anything like that.

00:18:00
Speaker 1: I am literally looking.

00:18:02
Speaker 4: At this and thinking, how can my husband and I make this work and raise two kids and let me be good at my job. And that was the plan and how we came up with it, and I felt like I went to work with it and I said this is what I'm I need and they were receptive.

00:18:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, it's it's kind of job where Yeah, I mean, you say you're working till eight pm, but it's not like you know that the news will be done by eight pm, like coming out of the White House, and what we could see, it could happen any hour of the day with this.

00:18:30
Speaker 1: Particular calls to be made.

00:18:31
Speaker 4: I might not be physically there, but I mean over the weekend, we were at an event and the National Guard was brought into California and that required me to make a series of phone calls that I was with my kids and I had to step away.

00:18:48
Speaker 1: And that this whole.

00:18:50
Speaker 4: Environment that we've created is the only way that I can do that without putting all of the burden on my husband all the time, who also has a full time job, which is hard.

00:18:59
Speaker 2: Yeaholute No, that's what we talk about on this show all the time.

00:19:03
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:19:04
Speaker 2: And so you have a young baby now who's born in January, and so a lot of people saw you covering the presidential campaign over the last year. When did you find out you were expecting a kid? Number two?

00:19:18
Speaker 4: There March March of twenty twenty four, and I actually did not tell anyone for quite some time.

00:19:29
Speaker 1: It was easier to.

00:19:31
Speaker 4: Do because I was on the road so much that like no one was looking at me, but I had this was really my dream job before I got the White House. Covering the campaign was my dream job. And you know, as a woman who got pregnant and was going to deliver in January right after the election, I was concerned that.

00:19:53
Speaker 1: It might impact something, even just to put it out there that I was pregnant.

00:19:57
Speaker 4: And I really was worried about that because again, like I worked for this job, like it really was like one of the greatest things I've ever done in my whole life, but it was also probably the hardest thing I've ever done.

00:20:10
Speaker 2: Well, I'm curious, what was your concern that people be like, well, we don't want to see someone pregnant on the era that you're gonna be do you know? It was danger from anything.

00:20:18
Speaker 1: It was a timeline issue.

00:20:19
Speaker 4: It was a time show, so it was like, so okay, So for example, I gave birth a week My initial due date was inauguration day, twenty twenty five.

00:20:29
Speaker 1: So like it's Trump won, which we didn't know in March what was gonna happen.

00:20:32
Speaker 4: But if he won, even if he didn't, what if I wanted to cover the inauguration.

00:20:41
Speaker 1: What if they thought of me that way, or what.

00:20:43
Speaker 4: If for some reason they thought, well, she's not gonna be able to travel after a certain time, so we should just scheduling early. By the way, they were wonderful when I told them they were wonderful. It was fine, and there was none of all that was put to the side. But in my mind, my concern was I just to make it through November, right, And if they think I can't make it through there because I'm too pregnant to go on the road or I'm too pregnant to keep doing this job and I might needed to be home, that might impact even the way they subconsciously think about me, And so I just that was my concern, was that I just wanted to wait as long as possible to where it was like, Okay, there's not really any at that point.

00:21:20
Speaker 1: There was no way to like change the dynamics.

00:21:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, you already knew that Kristin was on the air covering, so we're going to see Kristin through it to the end.

00:21:28
Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:21:29
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know about you, but pregnancy for me has never been a high energy time, So I'm curious how you managed your schedule of flying around seeing the various candidate events. I mean, it's presidential campaigns are grueling, not only for the people who are doing them, but obviously the people who are covering them too.

00:21:45
Speaker 1: I truly don't know.

00:21:47
Speaker 4: I look back on that time and I feel like I was two different people. I feel like I was the Kristin that was covering the campaign and also the Kristin was pregnant with her second child. I compartmentalize, which I don't know if it's healthy or not, but I did, and it was the.

00:22:03
Speaker 1: Only way that I could get through it.

00:22:07
Speaker 4: When I stopped traveling the month before after the election, but the month before she was born, it was like my body just shut down. It was like I couldn't I stopped being able to get up in the morning, and I started like it was like I had taken nine months of exhaustion and just powered through it. And it just hit me like the second that I couldn't get on a plane anymore. And I remember saying that to my bosses and just saying like, I'm just so tired, and they were like, you've been going one hundred miles per hour for the last nine months.

00:22:38
Speaker 1: Of course you're tired.

00:22:40
Speaker 4: But I think that there was a part of me that was like I promised my husband that at the end of the campaign, I knew it was going to be a really hardier that we would assess what my next job was, no matter what they offered me, and that I was not going to openly take any job without a full blown discussion about childcare and our.

00:22:57
Speaker 1: Lives and all of that. So for me, it was like the end of this is the election.

00:23:03
Speaker 4: It is or the inauguration and this baby being born, because after that is a question mark still until we see what the layout looks like and until we have this conversation.

00:23:12
Speaker 1: So it was like I was able to just like look.

00:23:14
Speaker 4: At this timeframe and be like this, I have to get through this. But like I said, like I toltally, like the month before she was born, I was like a wreck.

00:23:22
Speaker 1: I was sure done. I was done. I was done. I was going about at like seven o'clock.

00:23:26
Speaker 2: I was like, it was like, all right, well, We're gonna take one more quick ad break and I'll be back with more from Kristen Holmes. Well, I am back talking with Kristin Holmes, senior White House correspondent for CNN, who has been talking about having a three year old and also being pregnant on the campaign trail this last year. But I've said, one of the things you have mentioned is that you can't wait to tell your daughter about some of the experiences you had to gather. I guess because she was, of course with you the whole time on the campag troot. I wonder if you have a highlight or two that you can share with us.

00:24:09
Speaker 4: So I had this amazing producer on the campaign trail who started with me right before I got pregnant, and I always say that like she's part of the reason that my daughter is still alive, like because she took such good care of me, and like obviously, as you know, it takes a village. And so we took photos of me at like every stage of pregnancy in different places, and the really fun one for us was in California.

00:24:36
Speaker 1: Trump went to go do a press conference, and it.

00:24:38
Speaker 4: Was the first time I was showing and we still it was still like our secret the two of us. I'm obviously my husband, but on the road from work, and it just as this moment where we took all these pictures of me like pregnant. I felt pregnant for the first time, and we were kind of embracing it because so much of it had been like go go, go, go go, and we a little photo shoot and it just was such a fun moment. And then I think it was really cool on election night when we were down there and just that we'd made it on like she and I, my daughter and I had made it on this journey, and that we were there standing there waiting for the results and it was still like what's going to happen tonight, but it was like that was the finish line, and I just like we took pictures there of me standing there and it was just, I don't know, it was a really cool experience to be like, girl, we made it together, Like here we are, it's the end, Like we crossed the finish line.

00:25:36
Speaker 1: And those are probably the two biggest experiences.

00:25:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was just saying, it was funny, you're really you're getting yourself to election day. There was at the time some discussion like whether it would go on for a long time, but it turned out it was quick. It was that night.

00:25:49
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yes, so and that was that was actually great in the sense that we just we knew what would happened, and then it was time to move.

00:25:56
Speaker 2: It was time to move on exactly. So how are you or organizing things down newly back from maternity leave. I know that's a big adjustment for people as well.

00:26:06
Speaker 1: I'm not You're not, okay, Yeah, I'm not. I bought a planner. I was actually looking at it before I came in here.

00:26:11
Speaker 2: How's the planner working for you?

00:26:13
Speaker 4: It's in the box, Okay, I'm taking out today.

00:26:15
Speaker 1: Okay.

00:26:17
Speaker 4: My biggest issue that I've had, I had the same problem with my son, is that I do not have my.

00:26:23
Speaker 1: Full I still a foggy brain.

00:26:24
Speaker 4: Yeah and so, and I know this happens to everybody, and I feel like, look, it'll come back in some sense, maybe not fully, but I'll be able to remember things in a way that I can't right now. And so being organized is not really I need to figure out a system for that.

00:26:40
Speaker 1: And I think the planner will help.

00:26:42
Speaker 4: But also we keep a calendar, a skylight calendar, and that has been the most amazing thing we've ever done. It's in our kitchen on the side, and that at least like keeps us kind of vigilant and also aware of what's going on, because neither my husband and I are organized people. Just to be clear, we're that's not our specialty, and so that has really helped as well. I think the other thing I think about a lot, and I'm sure every mom does, is you know how I'm going to balance when my baby is not just a baby right like, right now, our lives are about our son, and the baby is someone we bring with us to what our son is doing. And I spend a lot of time thinking about how like best practices and I still don't know the answer obviously, but of how I can make sure that I figure out how to live for two people and two different events and all the stuff.

00:27:36
Speaker 1: Right now. It's it. It felt like.

00:27:38
Speaker 4: We finally got a handle on it with the three year old, and now it's like that's just gone, like we're starting we're starting over now. So it's yeah, So the like long story long is that I don't have a way to organize other than the Skylight calendar.

00:27:52
Speaker 1: And now I'll let you know how the planner goes.

00:27:54
Speaker 2: I hope it's a good planners behind this. Yeah, that's the one perfect planner.

00:28:00
Speaker 1: It's going to change everything exactly.

00:28:01
Speaker 2: But we also do. But you know, it's honestly the thing like, if you have more than one kid, you're juggling between the two of them constantly anyway, And there's this whole narrative about like, oh, well, work is on the opposite side of kids, and I'm juggling that. But it's like often the kids themselves. It's requiring you to split the attention.

00:28:18
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, And I do want to say, is the one thing about like the work versus kids?

00:28:22
Speaker 1: And I think this is something that.

00:28:24
Speaker 4: I feel like the younger generation is starting to do and I'm trying to embrace this too, and I've tried to with my son and now my daughter.

00:28:34
Speaker 1: Is this idea that like.

00:28:35
Speaker 4: It's okay to be a working mom. And I feel like for my mom's generation, it was like, you don't want to talk about the fact that you have kids, because if you talk about the fact that you've kids.

00:28:46
Speaker 1: And people see you differently. And I'm of the mind that none of us can.

00:28:50
Speaker 4: Actually do this without bringing up the fact that we have kids. So if it means that I'm working until nine pm, that might mean that my husband brings my son to the office and we spend an hour together and order dinner and sit there, and then he goes home and goes to bed. And I don't really want to live in a world in which I'm embarrassed or nervous about that hour somehow impacting the way that other people view me and my work product, because my work product is really great and I'm trying to keep it going. And so I really feel like we this generation need to keep doing that for the younger women as well, to be like, it's okay to have kids, It's okay that your life is divided. It doesn't mean you're any like any worse at your job or doesn't mean that, oh my god.

00:29:38
Speaker 1: It just means you have a full life.

00:29:41
Speaker 4: And I just feel like it was really hard for at least like in my mom's dinners.

00:29:44
Speaker 1: I mean, she even has said stuff to me. Well, She's like, well, don't bring up the kids factor, and it's like, but that is the factor. That's my whole thing.

00:29:52
Speaker 4: Like I'm a mom and I want to be a mom, and I want it to be a mom and so if I'm gonna do that, then like everybody should know that that's what I'm doing as well as doing my job.

00:30:01
Speaker 2: Absolutely well, that's what we're we're all about here. Gant aimen to that, well, Christ we always end with a love of the week. You're saying your planner made me think of my custom plumb planner. I love it. I love it. I have like a planner stack. My co host is massively into planners, by the way. But it was a tie between that and Sweethearts, because I like so love Sweethearts and I got a box that's amazing and I'm just so happy to be snacking on that. But what are you really enjoying this week? What's your love of the week.

00:30:34
Speaker 4: We started solas this week, Oh excitly, And I got to tell you that I did something that I'd never done with my son, which does I need food for like from scratch for the baby, which made me feel.

00:30:45
Speaker 1: Like I was super mom. By the way, You're like.

00:30:46
Speaker 2: Pioneer woman here.

00:30:47
Speaker 1: Exactly know.

00:30:48
Speaker 4: I was like in net shurning the butter No, and so I think my love this week is just like reliving that moment of because like we're so far beyond it now with our three year old of what it's like for her try things for the first time.

00:31:02
Speaker 1: And then obviously I'm hoping that my love of the week will be my planner once I take it out of the box and bring it to work today. That's my second thing that will change my life completely.

00:31:09
Speaker 2: It'll change your life absolutely, the little notebook that's going to change our lives exactly. What iful. Well, Kristin, thank you so much for joining us.

00:31:17
Speaker 1: Thank you. I really appreciate it. It was really fun.

00:31:20
Speaker 2: All right, Well we are back. I was interviewing Kristin Holmes from CNN about combining work and life. So this week's question also comes from a listener who is This is a common question we get about family spacing, but this person says, I'm hoping to have another kid, but probably won't be for another year or two due to family circumstances. Are there any particular challenges or upsides to having kids further apart like four or more years? What would you say, Sarah.

00:31:50
Speaker 3: Yeah hhmm, this is a hot take. Maybe I think it's generally easier if they're closer, if you're like ready to have another one. And that's a big if, because I will say, once you get past the like tyler baby stage, and that's like a big don't discount that because that part's really hard. It's easier when they share more common activities, friends, they're at the same school for longer, et cetera. So for us, like I was ready to have another one pretty quickly. I mean, we didn't really plan Cameron's timing, but I wasn't against it at all either, So it was like, great, this, this is so convenient. But there's no way I was ready to have a third.

00:32:26
Speaker 2: So even if it might.

00:32:27
Speaker 3: Have been nicer later on, and I'm sure it would have been if they for example, if we had kept the pattern of two years and Genevieve was in i don't know, finishing third grade this year instead of first grade, certain things might have been a little bit easier. But it just we weren't there. So you just got to do what works for you. And I don't know that you can plan ahead because you don't know how it's going to feel in your household to have kids of different ages.

00:32:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would say you can talk yourself into anything.

00:32:57
Speaker 1: I think.

00:32:58
Speaker 2: I think for health reasons probably you don't want to have them too close together, but especially if you start your family on the earlier side, there's absolutely no reason you couldn't like string it out for longer. And I mean, I've found having Henry at five easier than having some of my other children be five, partly because I have so many older kids and so there's more close to adult people around the house to help with him. They can drive in one case, I have three built in babysitters. It's just I kind of like having that bigger gap. But I don't know if I would have starting like age twenty seven, Laura saying this is the ideal time for me to have my kids over the next fourteen years. Like, no, I don't know that you can really even think about it. So if it works for you to have a bigger gap between your kids, like great, you're gonna love having a bigger gap between your kids. And you're gonna love having a big kid who doesn't view the baby so much as a rival but as like some cool, like almost pet like thing that has been added to the family. Whereas a two year old might be trying to hit the baby because it's like viewed as totally just a bad thing that happened.

00:34:15
Speaker 3: No, you're right, that's a good point. I didn't really think about those sibling relationships. But again, that can go both ways because sometimes siblings are so happy to be so close in age and oh if I didn't really get to know my sister because they were a decade old or whatever. But like same, they also could fight when they're close and like love being the little mascot. So maybe just let it happen how it happens, and not overthink it too much.

00:34:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, don't overthink it if the timing that is good for your family, because you know right now is a really bad time, Like in a couple of years will be a better than great.

00:34:45
Speaker 1: That's awesome.

00:34:47
Speaker 2: You'll have a wonderful family dynamic whatever it happens to be. All right, Well, this has been best of both worlds. I have been talking with Kristen Holmes from CNN. We will be back next week with more on making work in life fit together.

00:35:02
Speaker 3: Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the shoebox dot com or at the Underscore shoebox on Instagram and you.

00:35:10
Speaker 2: 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