Re-Air: Your Parenting Wakeup Call | Dr. Carla Naumburg

July 24, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

Dr. Carla Naumburg, a clinical social worker with a PhD, wrote a rebuttal article years ago criticizing Mayim Bialik’s rosy portrayal of breastfeeding a four-year-old. The two became unlikely friends, and that friendship eventually led Bialik to Naumburg for help with something she couldn’t control: the rage she felt toward her children. Naumburg’s books, including How to Stop Losing Your Shit with Your Kids and You Are Not a Shitty Parent, grew directly out of her own struggles with anxiety, yelling, and the shame that followed. This conversation is less about parenting techniques and more about what happens when you stop believing every thought you have.

The Wake-Up Call That Led to Mindfulness

Naumburg’s turning point came on a night when she had screamed at her young daughters, then put them in front of the TV and Googled “How do I stop yelling at my kids?” She found checklists, tried them, and failed within 18 hours. Then she turned to academic literature, where every article on maternal emotional regulation ended with the same recommendation: mindfulness training. She dismissed it as “bullshit for people who beat drums and drink kombucha,” but eventually signed up for a mindfulness-based stress reduction course as a hostile participant.

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What you'll learn

1 (00:03) **Episode Introduction** - Hosts Mayim Bialik and Jonathan Cohen introduce a re-air of their conversation with Dr. Carla Naumburg about her book "You Are Not a Shitty Parent," focusing on self-compassion in parenting.
2 (03:37) **How Their Friendship Started: The Mommy Blogging Feud** - Carla explains the origin of their unlikely friendship, which began when she wrote a rebuttal to a Mayim's article about extended breastfeeding.
3 (07:30) **Mayim's Personal Wake-Up Call** - Mayim describes how Carla's writing and friendship helped her during a difficult period of divorce and overwhelming anger toward her children.
4 (15:19) **Carla's Background: From Chaotic Childhood to Parenting Author** - Carla shares her personal history of multiple divorces, addiction, and mental illness in her family, explaining why she writes about parenting.
5 (20:43) **The Nature of Parenting Anxiety** - Carla unpacks what her anxiety actually looks like on a daily basis, including constant worry and catastrophic thinking.
6 (26:00) **The Specific Wake-Up Call That Led to Meditation** - Carla describes the exact night she Googled "How do I stop yelling at my kids?" and the frustrating journey that followed.
7 (28:45) **The Two Life-Changing Insights** - Carla shares the two core ideas from mindfulness that transformed her parenting and her life.

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Guests on this episode

Mayim Bialik Jonathan Cohen

Show Notes

In honor of International Self-Care Day, we’re revisiting the informative, fun, and practical episode we did in 2023 with licensed clinical social worker and bestselling author Dr. Carla Naumburg.

Dr. Naumburg helps us break down “sh*tty parent syndrome”, the evolution in parenting methods from generation to generation, and practical ways to practice self-care. Mayim and Carla discuss the unusual origin story of their friendship after Carla wrote an article criticizing Mayim’s parenting techniques. They explain the importance of honesty when sharing parenting struggles and not comparing yourself to other parents, how meditation impacts their parenting skills, and the dark side of “mommy blogging.” Dr. Naumburg shares why she doesn’t believe there are bad parents, what self-compassion in parenting really means, and her tips for parenting with anxiety and mindfulness-based stress reduction.

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