There comes a time when your crawling baby starts to walk and then run. The same applies to podcasts.
Having been a regular contributor and occasional stand-in host elsewhere, I wasn’t a total novice when I launched the Slouching towards Thatcham podcast. But I did have a lot to learn about production and editing, about recruiting guests and setting them at ease and about being solely responsible for producing vaguely interesting content every week.
After six months learning the ropes – and making plenty of mistakes along the way – it was time to take the next step. And so the Meet the Parents podcast was born.
Instead of me and a guest talking for 10-15 minutes in a simple, rigid format, there are now up to four of us every week chatting away for up to an hour, which I then have to whittle down to a final 30-minute edit. To say the complexity level has increased somewhat would be a massive understatement.
I enjoyed the challenge of building the Slouching towards Thatcham podcast. I’m loving working on Meet the Parents. It’s teaching me so many lessons about how to host a panel discussion – something that drags me, as someone who has a mild stammer and a voice for silent movies, way out of my comfort zone.
Better still, it’s giving me an excuse to chew the fat with some of my blogging friends on a regular basis. As far as I’m aware, there are no other UK parenting podcasts which feature both mums and dads and my objective in building the team was to bring together as a diverse set of parents as possible.
I think we’ve managed that. The team is located from the south-west to the north-east of the country. We have children ranging from toddlers to university students. Our ages range from mid-twenties to, er, somewhat older than that. We are stay-at-home, work-at-home and office-working. We even count a male Arsenal supporter and a female Spurs supporter among our number.
You may know some of us already:
- Amie – Finding Our Feet
- Dave – The DADventurer
- Hannah – Budding Smiles
- Hayley – Downs Side Up
- John – Dad Blog UK
- Julian – Northern Dad
- Mark – Best Dad I Can Be
- Vicky – Verily Victoria Vocalises
Anyhow, here’s what we’ve been up to in our first month on the podcast. Why not check us out?
Episode 1: Valentine, Shmalentine
Hannah, Julian, Vicky and I talk about how we approach Valentine’s Day as parents. Not to mention Modern Family, 1980s US pop duos and love rockets. Ahem. We’re also joined by Louise from Little Hearts Big Love, who discusses what it means to be a heart parent.
Episode 1: Valentine, Shmalentine
Extra: Won’t You (Buy Something For Me)
Why I should never be allowed anywhere near The Voice with my self-penned Valentine’s Day parody of the Simple Minds anthem Don’t You (Forget About Me).
Extra: Won’t You (Buy Something For Me)
Episode 2: Moving house & parking cars
I’m joined by Amie, Mark and Dave to discuss top tips for moving house with children in tow. We also talk about people who park their cars without considering the needs of parents of young children. (Spoiler alert: we don’t like them.) Oh, and Bananas in Pyjamas and Robocop (but not at the same time).
Episode 2: Moving house & parking cars
Episode 3: Speed-parenting and parental guilt
Amie, Dave and I have a natter about speed-parenting and how dads as well as mums suffer from parental guilt. And we manage to squeeze in references ro Top Gun, The Bourne Identity and Goldfinger.
Episode 3: Speed-parenting and parental guilt
You can catch up with the latest Meet the Parents podcast episodes and show notes over on our website at meettheparentspodcast.com. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook. You can also subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and Android or via Spreaker or our RSS feed.
If you liked this post, why not follow me on the following social networks?
