episode #1 | Sandra & Yotam

aiming at raising a trilingual, equanimous and social child

Hello hello!

I am delighted, excited, nervous and relieved to share with you this very first episode of my podcast, NewKid.

episode #1

Going from a vague idea to an actual episode that people can listen to is thrilling. It is far from perfect but I learned - and keep learning - that I’d rather leave perfection at the door (although that bitch keeps knocking: “it’s lame, do better”. Especially transitions, bear with me.)

I am full of gratitude for these two beautiful souls ; for opening up and for making space in their frenetic parents lives to pause and reflect on their parenting journey.

Without further ado, please welcome Sandra and Yotam 🥁💥👇

Watch/listen by clicking above. For now it’s just Youtube and Spotify, for I just realised it takes up to a week to get approved and distributed on some major podcast platforms… ✌️

About my guests

For a bit of context, I first met Yotam back in 2017 in Brisbane ; start-up life, we were expanding our skateboarding subscription box to the Australian market and settled there for close to a year. Yotam is a professional musician turned tech entrepreneur - he saw a glitch in a system and decided to solve it, made it to YC, grew and sold his company and now funds early stage start-ups. I’ve always felt he’s a calm, pragmatic thinker with a deadpan sense of humour.

Through him, we met his other half Sandra. Sandra is a ray of sunshine, like literally. She’s outgoing, curious, empathetic. She’s a joy to be around. I’ve never had the chance to attend her classes, but she must be a terrific person to work with as a student.

So yeah, Yotam introduced us to Sandra and the four of us went out for dinner. That’s probably when Yotam dropped that they never host people first, for if these people turn out to be crazy or too chatty, he and Sandra can still escape at any given time. (They ended up inviting us home, so looks like we passed the test.)

Anyways!

About the episode

In this episode, we discuss about raising a multi-cultural child - Sandra’s from Colombia, Yotam’s from Israel, kiddo’s been born and raised in Australia: the sense of identity, the ability to communicate in multiple languages with the extended family. We talk about discipline. We explore the importance of routines, I love their three-question routine at night -your favorite part of the day; something that made you laugh; something you didn’t like. We dig into what’s most important to nurture, in that case for them equanimity, knowing where you come from and being able to make friends. We also talk a bit about how they see technology serving their 5-year old kid now and as he gets older. About being flexible on things that matter less (short videos while you brush your teeth) and strict about just a few, important things.

I couldn’t wrap this up better than with Sandra’s own words:

“I want our son to have the financial intelligence of Yotam and my social intelligence”

Dig deeper

Resources shared during the podcast:

• Seen, a film about parenting, about knowing where you come from (aka your own childhood) to make more informed decisions as you’re raising your child

Next online screening is happening this coming Sunday, May 4th at 2pm Australia / 6am France 🥱 / 9pm San Francisco

And if you’d like to host the movie in your town, turns out you can!

• MindHeart, about gentle parenting (esp. targeting Latin American parents)

• Parent.tv, about helping parents navigate specific questions along their parenting journey, video content behind a subscription wall (Sandra actually translated their content to Spanish 😎)

• Maggie Dent, about raising boys, and her books From Boys to Men and Mothering Our Boys (that I haven’t read yet but certainly will)

• (bonus: the dino friend we came across last summer)

2️⃣ 🎬 Stay tuned for episode #2, this time with a couple from Santa Cruz, California now living in Lyon, France - with two young daughters. He’s American, she grew up between France, the US and Colombia (I can’t help, the Colombian moms I know just rock). I look forward to introducing them to you!

Thank you for listening!

If you want to share a suggestion, make an intro, send your love, please do so in the comments or by just hitting reply to this email ! And well, if you liked this episode or the mission I am on, why not sharing it with a (parent) friend :)

See ya next week!

Yours,

Mathilde