Podcasts

How do you give a eulogy when you can’t think of one good thing to say? A poignant, funny, and candid look at grief, family secrets, difficult people, and learning to look behind the facade. As if being stuffed into last year’s dress pants at his cousin’s wake weren’t uncomfortable enough, thirteen-year-old Jimmy has just learned from his mother that he has to say a few words at the funeral the next day. Why him? What could he possibly say about his cousin, who ruined everything they did? He can’t recall one birthday party, family gathering, or school event with Patrick that didn’t result in injury or destruction. As Jimmy attempts to navigate the odd social norms of the wake, he draws on humor, heartfelt concern, and a good deal of angst while racking his brain and his memory for a decent and meaningful memory to share. But it’s not until faced with a microphone that the realization finally hits him: it’s not the words that are spoken that matter the most, but those that are truly heard.

Today our show focuses on Women and Finance– Taking Control of Your Future. Whether married, single, windowed or a recent graduate, money isn't always a favorite topic for women. Today our guests will discuss ways that women can get up close and personal to their finances and create their own wealth.

The old saying goes that you learn more from failure than success. Yet, today’s teenagers are reporting experiencing high anxiety and depression with the fear of failure being a key factor. Local expert Adam Russo, CEO of Edgewood Clinical Service and author of Unwritten Rules: Real Strategies to Parent Your Child into a Successful Adult, joins the Moms on set to talk about letting kids fail and learn how to handle the emotions that go with it. Helping kids learn consequences for their actions and how to manage their own lives at appropriate stages can go a long way into them becoming healthy, happy, self-starting adults. Adam Russo was a speaker at TEDx Naperville on The Importance of Failure. Teens are spending more than one-third of their days using online media such as online video or music — nearly nine hours on average, this according to a new study from the family technology education non-profit group, Common Sense Media. For tweens, those between the ages of 8 and 12, the average is nearly six hours per day. The Moms discuss screen time vs. free time and how it’s a complicated relationship. They offer suggestions, such as “no technology zone” and emphasizing free time doesn’t mean online time.

While studying to take her citizenship test, Silvia Hidalgo found her government-provided materials lacking. So she took on the challenge on her own to create a better way! Meet Hidalgo with her new title, How to Be an American. Timely. The current political climate has left many of us wondering how our government actually operates. Sure, we learned about it in school, but if put to the test, how many of us can correctly explain the branches of government? The history of politics? The differences and connections between local government and federal government? Enter How to Be an American. While author and illustrator Silvia Hidalgo was studying for her citizenship test, she quickly found that the materials provided by the government were lacking. In order to more easily absorb the information, Hidalgo started her own illustrated reference to civics facts and American history essentials. She’s collected her findings in How to Be an American, a freshly designed and illustrated two-color guide to all things America.

Today's show will focus on Immigration. We hear about it on the news and in different media formats. But today we will be discussing what’s really happening with immigration and it’s impact on business.

For many Moms, a lack of sleep is something that is often joked about but in this episode, our Moms, tell us it’s nothing to joke about. Parents also hope that the sleep deprivation is confined to their child’s first 24 months of life; however, our Moms of older children say it doesn’t end there. So, whether it’s younger or older children keeping you awake at night join the Moms as they discuss how they cope with their lack of sleep. The loss of a family member, friend or pet has a ripple effect through a family. In this episode, the Moms discuss how they needed to recognize their own grief as well as help their child through the journey. And, often times, support comes from many different people in their community to help not only their children but also themselves. A difficult but important topic is the subject in this episode of The Naperville Mom’s Network.

From the New York Times bestselling author of A Million Little Pieces and Bright Shiny Morning comes Katerina, James Frey’s highly anticipated new novel set in 1992 Paris and contemporary Los Angeles. A kiss, a touch. A smile and a beating heart. Love and sex and dreams, art and drugs and the madness of youth. Betrayal and heartbreak, regret and pain, the melancholy of age. Katerina, the explosive new novel by America’s most controversial writer, is a sweeping love story alternating between 1992 Paris and Los Angeles in 2018. At its center are a young writer and a young model on the verge of fame, both reckless, impulsive, addicted, and deeply in love. Twenty-five years later, the writer is rich, famous, and numb, and he wants to drive his car into a tree, when he receives an anonymous message that draws him back to the life, and possibly the love, he abandoned years prior. Written in the same percussive, propulsive, dazzling, breathtaking style as A Million Little Pieces, Katerina echoes and complements that most controversial of memoirs, and plays with the same issues of fiction and reality that created, nearly destroyed, and then recreated James Frey in the American imagination.

Gangster Al Capone and federal agent Eliot Ness are linked in crime history. And their story is a struggle for control of 1930’s Chicago. Award-winning mystery Grand Master Max Allan Collins and historian A. Brad Schwartz bring the era to life.