How to be a bare minimum parent with James Breakwell | Spawned Episode 134
If you’ve heard of helicopter parenting, well, sorry to say, we’re not talking about that today. We’re actually talking about the polar opposite (or well, close enough) with the hilarious social media sensation and author James Breakwell (aka...
Kids and video games: What parents need to know | Spawned Episode 133
With the holiday season in full swing, we know lots of parents are seeing video games on gift wish lists. We also know parents, like us, have so many questions about them. What are upsides and downsides? When do we know too much is too much? Will Fortnite ever go away...
The importance of gratitude right now | Spawned ep 32
We both have gratitude on our minds right now. At a time that there is so much abundance — food, gifts, parties — and conversely, so many of us struggling with holidays in general, it’s so valuable for us to slow down and consider ways to help...
Surviving the toddler years with Dr. Heather Wittenberg | Spawned Episode 131
The toddler years comes with quite a reputation for putting poor, unsuspecting parents through the ringer. Well, we’re here to give you a little bit of your sanity back thanks to our special guest Dr. Heather Wittenberg aka The BabyShrink, who’s an expert...
Representation FTW! Spawned Ep. 130
Whatever your feelings about what happened on November 6, 2018, we hope you can agree that it was an exciting, historic day for women. Over 100 women in Congress! YES! So, on this week’s episode of Spawned with Kristen and Liz, we’re talking about Election...
12 year olds can be arrested for trick-or-treating and WHAT IS GOING ON | Spawned 129
So uh, yeah. Turns out that some American towns are now banning 12-year-old kids from trick-or-treating, under penalty of arrest. We think it’s nuts, of course, so we had to talk about it this week on Spawned.There are even a lot of expert reasons that...
Amiyrah Martin on the most genius time-saving hacks for moms (They are SO good!)
This week on Spawned, we’re joined by Amiyrah Martin of 4 Hats and Frugal. She’s one of our favorite writers and Instagrammers and while she’s known for her great tips on saving money, she happens to be pretty sharp with time-saving tips too....
Catherine McCord’s tips for making feeding kids more fun | Spawned ep 127
We’re always up for tips and tricks to help us make our time in the kitchen more fun, which is why we were so excited to chat with Catherine McCord, of the uber popular Weelicious, one of our all-time favorite food blogs. We’ve been friends for years now,...
How much screen time is too much? Tech health expert Dr. Mike Brooks | Spawned ep 126
When work is online, communication is online, entertainment is online and it’s all 24/7…it can be hard to get offline. We get it! So we’re happy to share so much helpful info from from tech health expert, author, Austin-based dad, and Psychology...
Kids and nutrition: Tips from pediatric expert Dr. Tanya Altmann | Spawned ep 125
This week on Spawned, we’re talking kids and nutrition. Which, TBH, is one of those issues that nearly universally stresses out parents of all kinds, with kids of all ages. Fortunately, we’ve got an expert to help us out: Dr. Tanya Altmann, who you may...
One brilliant, simple thing you can do right now to help end working mom guilt | Spawned ep 124
Working mom guilt is something every working mom has experienced in one way or another. And basically, it sucks. However, we’ve always heard that guilt is the most useless emotion — and now, consider us schooled. On this week’s episode of Spawned, we...Hi! We’re Kristen + Liz!
We started Cool Mom Picks in 2006 to help make life cooler, easier, more organized, more meaningful, and more fun for parents of all kinds.
Trivia: It was called Cool Mom Sh*t for the first two days. (Yeah, we rethought that.)
We had no idea our site would grow to become a major lifestyle network, that we'd end up sharing our finds with the TODAY Show and Martha Stewart, that we'd be able to make a real difference for so many small businesses and women-run companies, or that we'd end up with an incredible community of the coolest readers on the planet. (If we do say so ourselves).
But we did.
And we still love what we do every single day.
We're so glad you're here.
NEW: The Cool Mom Picks Book Club
UP NEXT:
Raising Empowered Daughters by Mike Adamick 6/18
PAST SELECTIONS:
Radical Kindness by Angela Santomero
Under Pressure by Lisa Damour
Our Podcast
Too hot to cook
Answers to Parents’ Top Tech Questions
Our sponsors are cool. Support them!
Work with us!
“I need a parental control device for summer to limit online time for my kids”
“I have a later-in-life onset gluten intolerance. Help, please!”
Doing Good: We’re Supporting…
