everymum

Welcome back to Everymum the podcast with me, Aisling Keenan. Today I’m joined by Emma O’Leary, a paediatric speech and language therapist, mum of three boys and the woman behind the hugely popular parenting platform Life With Tiny Humans. Emma has been sharing the realities of family life online for years, combining her professional experience with the much less polished reality of raising children. And, as she puts it, trying to keep the chaos at bay. Emma’s boys are now 11, 9 and 7, so she’s right in the thick of that particularly interesting stage of parenting where your children are becoming increasingly independent, but still very much need you. In this conversation, we talk a lot about life online and what it means to raise children in a world where screens are simply part of everyday life. We talk about screen time, the repercussions of too much of it, how you actually go about limiting it without losing your mind, and the alternatives that can help children switch off and engage with other things. We also get into the other side of being online as a mother - the comparison, the pressure, the feeling that everyone else is somehow doing it better, and the negativity that can come with putting your family and your parenting out there. But Emma also talks about the other side of that coin: the incredible support, connection and sense of community that can come from finding other parents who understand exactly what you're going through. We talk about what motherhood has taught both of us, how your children can be completely different people who require completely different parenting, and how much of parenting is actually about figuring out what works for this particular child, rather than following some universal rule. So whether you have tiny humans, slightly bigger humans, or are simply trying to work out how on earth everyone else seems to be managing it, you'll definitely take something from my chat with Emma. I'll be back next week with another great episode.

Welcome back to Everymum the podcast, I'm your host Aisling Keenan. My guest this week is Sarah Maria Griffin, a successful novelist whose work explores identity, family, fear and the complicated business of being human. She’s the author of Eat the Ones You Love, and her latest release, Strange is the Light. In this episode, I wanted to help you get to know the person behind the books, and particularly Sarah’s experience of becoming a mother for the first time. We talked about her childhood, what she was like growing up, and the route she took into becoming a writer. But most of our conversation centred on pregnancy, labour and those first moments of motherhood. Sarah talks very openly about what pregnancy was actually like for her, what she remembers about giving birth, and the things that surprised her about becoming a mother. We talk about the physical experience of delivering her little girl, the reality of those first few days, and how different the reality of having a baby can be from what you imagine beforehand. It’s a really honest conversation about becoming a mother for the first time. Not just the lovely bits, but the uncertainty, the physicality and the sheer strangeness of suddenly becoming responsible for another person. This is my conversation with Sarah Maria Griffin. I'll be back next week with more.

Hi everyone and welcome back to Everymum the podcast, I'm Aisling Keenan. My guest this week is Bronagh Starrs. Bronagh is a psychotherapist, expert in contemporary adolescent mental health. She’s also an author and she has spent decades working with young people and their families. Her new book, I Can’t Go In, is about something that an increasing number of parents are finding themselves dealing with: school anxiety, and what happens when a child becomes so anxious that they simply cannot get through the school gates. So I wanted to talk to Bronagh about what school anxiety actually looks like, how you can tell the difference between a child who doesn’t want to go to school and a child who genuinely can’t face it, and why some of the things we instinctively do as parents: reassuring them, encouraging them, bargaining with them or putting pressure on them, which don’t necessarily help. We talked about what parents should do when the school run becomes a daily battle, the role schools can play, why some children are particularly vulnerable to school anxiety, and whether things like neurodiversity and parenting styles can play a part. And, importantly, we talked about what schools can do to help. Because understanding that your child is anxious is one thing, knowing how to help them through it is another. This is my conversation with Bronagh Starrs – enjoy and I'll be back next week with more.

Welcome back to Everymum the podcast, with me Aisling Keenan. What happens to a woman when the physical body, social identity and daily life she knew are all suddenly altered? That’s what my guest this week and I discuss – Nicole Gaffney Hahesy, or Cole Gaffney as you might know her online, is an influencer and mother to a 7-month-old girl named Éala. We talk about her placenta previa, her tricky birth, Éala’s stay in the NICU, and the fact that Éala still doesn’t care much for sleeping. We talk about CMPA (Cow’s milk protein allergy), reflex and colic and how Nicole faced all three in the early days of Éala’s little life. Nicole has built an online presence around motherhood, style and everyday life, so I wanted to talk to her about the stuff underneath the nice pictures: postpartum body image, getting dressed when your body has changed, figuring out who you are when your priorities have completely shifted and the reality of trying to feel like yourself again when you're also becoming somebody completely new. Because I think there’s a huge pressure on women to be grateful for motherhood every second of the day, while simultaneously looking like they’ve somehow emerged from it completely unscathed which we ALL know is not the case. Enjoy this episode with Nicole, and I’ll be back next week with more.

Hi everyone, welcome back to Everymum the podcast, I'm your host Aisling Keenan. As many co-parents will know, separation is rarely the end of a relationship. For parents, it's often the beginning of a totally new one where you're navigating school runs, birthdays, holidays, doctor's appointments and all the everyday logistics of raising children with someone you're no longer sharing a life with. And while we hear so much about the emotional impact of separation, we don't often talk about the practical reality of communicating well when emotions are running high. For many families, those day-to-day interactions can become one of the biggest challenges of co-parenting. A simple text can be misread, conversations can quickly escalate, and children can end up caught in the middle of misunderstandings that were never meant for them. Finding ways to reduce conflict and keep communication focused on what matters most can make an enormous difference, not just for parents, but for their children too. Noel Crabbe, a father to four daughters, is my guest today and he set out to tackle exactly that problem by creating an app designed to help separated parents communicate more clearly, more calmly and, ultimately, more effectively. We'll talk about what inspired the idea, what he's learned from working with families navigating separation and how technology can play a role in helping parents work together. Whether you're co-parenting yourself, know someone who is, work with families, or are simply interested in how technology is being used to solve real life problems, I think you'll find plenty to take away from this conversation.

Today's guest is someone many of you will know from social media, where she's built a loyal following by sharing her passion for style, her relatable family stories and lots more. Sinéad De Butléir is one of the real rarities on social media today – aspirational but still a down to earth girl trying to juggle it all. She's an oncology nurse and mother of two small children, Mallaidh and Nóe, and is busy raising her children, building a career, protecting family life and trying to hold onto a sense of herself in the middle of it all. In this episode, we're talking about the journey into motherhood from the very beginning, what she expected, what actually happened, and everything that came after. From pregnancy and birth to the fourth trimester, work-life balance, the mental load, and the everyday moments that have shaped her as a parent - nothing is off the table. Whether you're expecting your first baby, knee-deep in toddlerhood or simply wondering if anyone else feels like they're making it up as they go along, I think you'll find something in this conversation.

Welcome back to Season 20, Episode 1 where we welcome Holly Cairns - leader of the Social Democrats, a TD for Cork South-West, and one of the most recognisable voices in Irish politics. First elected to Dáil Éireann in 2020, she's built a reputation for speaking candidly about issues ranging from housing, healthcare and women's rights, to gender equality and childcare. But beyond the headlines and parliamentary debates, Holly is also someone who has spoken openly about the personal side of public life: the pressures of leadership, the expectations placed on women, and what it means to build a life while serving the country. As more people delay starting families, navigate changing ideas of parenthood, or try to balance demanding careers with their personal lives, those conversations have become increasingly relevant.Today, we're stepping away from party politics and into the person behind the politician. We'll be talking about ambition, identity, family, and the values that shape not just how Holly leads, but how she sees the world. Enjoy this episode, and I'll be back to you next week.

Welcome back to Everymum the podcast, I'm Aisling Keenan, your host. Today's episode surprised me. It's not often that happens, but when I first invited today's guest, Laura O'Connell, to join me, I wanted to talk to her about her genuinely hilarious and sometimes triggering midwife comedy sketches. I wanted to unpick with her the reactions and why she made them. Instead, we got into one of the most soul-baring and deep discussions about the realities of motherhood and its place (and struggle to find its place) in this patriarchal society we live in. We talk about how the major side effect of those brilliant reels was that Laura got angry – angry at the lack of support and lack of awareness around postnatal mental health. We get into the weeds about everything from guilt and the relentlessness of parenting (as laura puts it, there is no rip cord you can pull) and why conversations like the ones that come up in the comment sections of her viral reels are so important. This was a cathartic episode for me in all honesty, and you will be hearing from Laura again because I feel we have so much more to get through. Here's this week's episode, I'll be back to you next week with more.

Welcome back to everymum the podcast, with me Aisling Keenan. Today we are talking about one of the biggest identity shifts a person can go through and one we still don’t talk about nearly enough. Motherhood isn’t just a physical transition; it’s emotional, psychological, social. There’s a word for that transformation and that is matrescence. It's not something I was very familiar with until really recently, but my guest today studies it and is pretty much an expert now. Returning for more chats, Claire Moore is a mother of two, Irish but living in Hong Kong, and is a facilitator for an amazing organisation called Bump and Co. With Bump and Co, they know how unsupported, misunderstood, and invisible many women can feel during their post-partum period and beyond, and they bring a peer-to-peer support together to help new mothers through their experiences. In this conversation, we talk about the genuine gap in the care for new mothers, not just commercially, but emotionally. We also get into the bigger cultural conversation around motherhood: why society still struggles to acknowledge how destabilising and transformative it can be, the pressure to appear like you’re coping, and the tension between the beauty of becoming a mother and the grief of losing parts of your old self. We also discuss whether modern motherhood has become overly optimised and commercialised, and what support for mothers should actually look like in real life, beyond Instagram slogans and vague ideas about “self care.” And if you’re listening as someone currently in the thick of matrescence, feeling overwhelmed or unlike yourself, there’s a really important message in this episode for you too. Here’s my conversation with Claire, and I'll be back next week with more.