A year ago... okay, a little more than a year ago, but I have 2 kids so I'm just getting around to finally writing a post about this now... I wrote a post about launching a podcast. As I mentioned in that post, I literally dreamt about creating the Parent Driven Development podcast and it has been an incredible year of podcasting. To date we've published 25 episodes. Every episode is different and so nice. We have panelists that come from different backgrounds and have a variety of perspectives and our guests have been truly wonderful. Recording the podcast is such a good way to broadcast who we are and what our successes and challenges are. We've found over the course of the year that sometimes we're learning from each other, sometimes they are like group therapy sessions that come at a perfect time, other times it's an opportunity to rant about something that's been frustrating us, and finally they can be opportunities to connect with people on a totally different level.

But the year of podcasting hasn't been without it's challenges. First and foremost, oy is it difficult to find a time that works for folks. We all have children and jobs. Things come up at work, things come up at home, we try to record at the same time every other week but we'll adjust our time based on guest availability or other things. It is definitely tough to make sure we're finding a time that works for everyone. Next is all the kid related stuff. One panelist mentioned that he thought every snow day declared this winter had happened on an episode recording day. We have to contend with that as well as flu season, illnesses, summer schedules, the transitions to camps and different schedules, and more. As with most of parenting, it all basically comes down to being able to roll with as much as possible and trying to record no matter what... even if only 1 or 3 panelists happen to be free. I wouldn't be surprised if we had a future episode with just one panelist talking about any parenting topic interesting to them. We're also always looking for new or diverse panelists. It's important to maintain a balance of gender identities, experiences, backgrounds, and more. Sometimes finding folks or knowing who should be on our radar is tough. And finally, it's hard to be vulnerable on air for whomever is listening! We're talking about our kids, our families, our failures, and our struggles. We use this time to share these parts of ourselves and we never know how folks are going to react to the things we say or do. Sometimes that can be really scary.

I wanted to highlight some of my favorite episodes (although they're all great and you should go binge-listen now).

• Episode 3: Internet privacy and your children. Thank you to Heidi for being our first guest when we had no idea what we were doing!
• Episode 9: Planning a conference with childcare. Abby came on to provide some protips on what to think about when thinking about offering childcare at a conference.
• Episode 11: Being a Trans Parent. Jess (now a panelist!) talked about talking to kids about gender identity. I learned SO much from this episode.
• Episode 15 where we discuss on-call duty with Allyson which is something so many of us deal with.
• Episode 20 was very impactful for me. We talked with Adam about fertility struggles, one of the most difficult topics to discuss related to parenting and something that affects so so many individuals. and finally
• Episode 23. This one was special to me because it really helped me process a difficult holiday season.

Check out all the episodes here.

Now for a whole lot of thank yous!!! First and foremost, thank you to Mandy who is the most amazing podcast producer EVER. She does an incredible job making sure we all sound intelligent even though we're all so tired, booking guests, wrangling panelists, and more. This podcast definitely would not survive without her.

Thank you to the current panelists and to the former panelists as well. I'm so grateful you all give your time, energy, and parenting perspectives to this podcast on a regular basis.

And finally, thank you to all the amazing guests we've had!!!

Stay tuned, we've got some great topics and guests coming up.

If you have questions, comments, or topics you'd like us to tackle, let us know at panel@parentdrivendev.com

(and we're always looking for patreon supporters and sponsors if that's something your company would be interested in!)