Join the Round Table for this special holiday edition where we discuss favorite family traditions and memories, navigating family dynamics during the stressful holiday season, and how we can teach our children more about gift giving.

Plus, a bonus challenge that includes great gift ideas from the Round Table! Check out these free gifts offered for Christmas at Power of Moms.  WAVE has this great gift idea. And don’t forget gift subscriptions to Segullah and Exponent II.

To listen to this podcast on-site, begin here.
To download this podcast via iTunes, click here.

Part 1 of our special holiday edition: Visiting a soup kitchen, holding a charity Christmas concert, hiking to give the homeless root beer floats, the Round Table participants reminisce about favorite holiday memories and traditions. Plus, what are some specifically Mormon traditions?

Listen to Part 2 here.

Listen HERE.

Part 2 of our special holiday edition: Families want to be close during the holiday season, but how do you navigate the all the different dynamics and personalities who come together?

Listen to Part 3 here.

Listen HERE.

Part 3 of our special holiday edition: Christmas can be a beautiful time of giving and receiving, but in the midst of all the commercials, how does you help you kids avoid the gimmes? Plus, some last minute gift ideas from the Round Table!

Happy Holidays from all of us!

Listen HERE.

October’s Topic: Redefining Manhood

This month, guest Tiffany Lewis joins the Round Table to discuss issues relating to her Deseret News article, Raising our boys into men.  Here are some of our initial reactions to the article, which we share with Tiffany in our group discussion.

From Lisa: “The thing she says that I do have some interest in/ sympathy for, is the idea that boys can benefit from having defined markers to look forward to that mark them as ‘men’.  I also think these things can be very good for helping girls feel like ‘women’.  Although then you end up with the problem that boys who don’t go on missions or girls who don’t become mothers (for instance) both suffer a loss of social status that can never really be ‘fixed’ through other acts of service.”

From Chelsea: “The types of upheaval and emotional loss I see in men today (in my mind) has to do with the fact that the public sphere has opened up for women, but the private sphere has not for men.”

From Neylan:  ”It seems quite evident to me that in our middle/upper class educated American society men are struggling educationally, financially and existentially with the rise of women. I think the responsibility to solve that lies with men, not with women.”

During the conversation we reference Chelsea’s article on the Exponent blog, titled Rituals of Adulthood and Equality. Other articles relevant to the discussion are The Opposite of ‘Man’ is ‘Boy’, not ‘Woman” on Jezebel.com, and Fatherhood Leads to Drop in Testosterone in the NY Times.

To listen to this podcast on-site, begin here.
To download this podcast via iTunes, click here.

Guest Bio:

Tiffany Gee Lewis is a writer and journalist who grew up hopping from one U.S. city to another. She has a BA in journalism from BYU, and has done work for National Geographic Online, The Miami Herald, The Austin American-Statesman, The Minneapolis Star Tribune, Meridian Magazine and other publications. For three years she has written the popular From the Homefront column for Mormon Times. Her favorite topic for writing is family life. She especially likes to explore the humor behind parenting and the need for mothers to find a creative space amidst  the sometimes-tedium of keeping house. When she is not writing, Tiffany manages to avoid housework by running, singing, gardening, and sprouting her own alfalfa. She blogs at The Tiffany Window and lives with her husband and four young sons in Minnesota.

In Part I of our October conversation, Neylan, Chelsea, Kathryn, and Emily along with guest Tiffany Lewis discuss concerns about the development of boys and young men.

Listen to Part II here.

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