In this episode, Kimberly speaks with Jamie Glowacki, author of the bestselling Oh Crap! Potty Training, about why her work has moved from potty training toward what she calls mom authority. Speaking from a stone cabin in the Rhode Island woods, Jamie traces a line from the misreading of gentle parenting and child-led philosophies to pandemic isolation, short-form content, and a motherhood built for the camera: a house made of cardboard, made of reels.
They talk about the lost village and the shared consensus that once made it possible, the 1950s nuclear family, the comfort crisis, and technoference, the research on what parents’ phones do to young children. Kimberly and Jamie compare notes on birth, breastfeeding, and choice as it is sold to new mothers, and how the “wait till they’re ready” doctrine grew alongside the diaper industry.
In the second half, the conversation turns to menopause, which Jamie found just as profound as motherhood: a descent and a fire, rather than a set of symptoms to manage. Together they ask what it means to medicate ourselves out of initiation, and how to bring back the commitment and juiciness that real transitions require.
Jamie Glowacki Bio
Jamie Glowacki is an internationally recognized potty training and parenting expert and the author of Oh Crap! Potty Training and Oh Crap! I Have a Toddler. Her roots are in social work, where she worked with dual-diagnosis mothers and their children in residential facilities and became a doula to advocate for them in birth.
She began teaching potty training classes out of the secondhand children’s store she owned in Providence, Rhode Island, and her self-published guide grew into an international bestseller, revised and updated in 2024.
With more than 25 years of work with families, Jamie now focuses on what she calls mom authority, helping mothers reclaim confidence, boundaries, and leadership through courses including Unscripted Authority and The Boundary Clinic, a consultant certification program, the Oh Crap! Potty Training Podcast, and her Substack. A bow hunter and mother to her son Pascal, she lives in the woods of northern Rhode Island.
What She Shares
- Why she shifted from potty training to what she calls mom authority
- How gentle parenting and child-led philosophies were misread as permissive parenting
- Motherhood as a house made of cardboard, built out of reels
- Why kids these days is really parents these days
- The 1950s nuclear family and how we lost the village
- Technoference and why “put your phone down” is her email signature
- How her potty training method began in a secondhand kids’ store in Providence
- The marketing history behind “wait till they’re ready”
- A menopause without symptoms that still burned everything down
- Why she thinks perimenopause is a report card on your life
- Living in the woods as a bow hunter and what it taught her about nature
What You’ll Hear
- Raising a son in a stone cabin with 30 chickens and a feral dog
- Authoritarian, authoritative, and permissive parenting, and the trap of oppositional parenting
- Why five- and six-year-olds are going to school in diapers
- The ’90s mom: available but not inserted into childhood
- Neighborhood play, Kool-Aid at the beach, and the end of parenting consensus
- Adults who have never held a baby, or been to a birth
- Air conditioning, stoop culture, and losing our neighbors
- A mother at 38 weeks who didn’t know what transition was
- “Everybody has the birth that makes them a mother”
- The still face experiment and what phones do to call and response
- Shafia Monroe and the joy of a birth team
- The comfort crisis and the pressure toward epidurals and formula
- Kimberly Seals Allers on choice feminism and The Big Letdown
- Why Kimberly stopped working as a doula
- Potty training as a rite of passage for parent and child
- Unhinged versus cringe, and the quiet unlayering of menopause
- Medicating ourselves out of initiation
- Asking older women in the grocery store about their menopause
- Whether awe survives the urge to post
Resources:
- Website: https://www.jamieglowacki.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jamie.glowacki/ (@jamie.glowacki)
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ohcrapwithjamie
- The Oh Crap! Potty Training Podcast (Apple): https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-oh-crap-potty-training-podcast/id1627503268
- The Oh Crap! Potty Training Podcast (Spotify): https://open.spotify.com/show/1rqHsRldmsoVDOitTtd7A8
- Substack: https://substack.com/@jamieglowacki
- Books: Oh Crap! Potty Training (revised and updated edition, Gallery Books, 2024); Oh Crap! I Have a Toddler
- Kimberly’s New Book: Erotic Seasons Tuning into the Rhythms of Women’s Sexuality and Spirituality