Choosing Chaos: Solo Motherhood by Choice
Jul 20, 2026 · 46 min · 14 segments
Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Laura sits down with Dena to talk about the intentional choices, unexpected turns, and quiet magic that led her to…
Hello, I'm doing well.
Thank you so much for having me.
I'm really excited to be here and have a chat with you.
Dina, I had teased a little bit that your son is now three years old.
If somebody dropped into your life for one week, what would they see quickly about your lifestyle and your household?
I think they would say that our household is full of love and curiosity and a lot of conversation.
My son has the gift of talking just like his mom, and he likes to narrate his life.
He likes to tell me what he thinks about things.
He likes to tell me what he doesn't like about things.
He loves to tell me about what's going on at his school, with his friends, what we did two weeks ago, what he thinks was yesterday.
And I think that that's what people would say about our house is that we are full of a lot of love and a lot of attention and a lot of curiosity about life.
I love the fact that he's having those conversations with you
now.
And I think what's interesting is we have a lot of playdates with a lot of other SMBC friends and a lot of just parents in general because we're involved in some light extracurricular activities like Sunday Soccer League and swim lessons and maybe, you know, write routine playdates.
And he is definitely a very talkative boy.
And I'm sure your son will be equally as talkative if you – constantly engage with him and ask him to answer your questions and stuff.
Right.
I can't wait.
It's coming soon.
Yes.
You described solo motherhood as organized chaos, right? Which choosing chaos, welcome here.
Hello, I'm doing well.
Thank you so much for having me.
I'm really excited to be here and have a chat with you.
Dina, I had teased a little bit that your son is now three years old.
If somebody dropped into your life for one week, what would they see quickly about your lifestyle and your household?
I think they would say that our household is full of love and curiosity and a lot of conversation.
My son has the gift of talking just like his mom, and he likes to narrate his life.
He likes to tell me what he thinks about things.
He likes to tell me what he doesn't like about things.
He loves to tell me about what's going on at his school, with his friends, what we did two weeks ago, what he thinks was yesterday.
And I think that that's what people would say about our house is that we are full of a lot of love and a lot of attention and a lot of curiosity about life.
I love the fact that he's having those conversations with you
now.
And I think what's interesting is we have a lot of playdates with a lot of other SMBC friends and a lot of just parents in general because we're involved in some light extracurricular activities like Sunday Soccer League and swim lessons and maybe, you know, write routine playdates.
And he is definitely a very talkative boy.
And I'm sure your son will be equally as talkative if you – constantly engage with him and ask him to answer your questions and stuff.
Right.
I can't wait.
It's coming soon.
Yes.
You described solo motherhood as organized chaos, right? Which choosing chaos, welcome here.
Every episode on Radar is fully transcribed, speaker-labeled, and rich with metadata. Here is a taste of this one. Try Radar for free to see the rest.
3 of 6
Mourning Your Old Identity
Dina reveals profound change after becoming mom
Forget Perfect, Just Try
Colleague's advice: drop perfection, embrace enough daily
Toddler's First Beach Awe
A tiny boy sees waves, pure wonder
+3 more clips · 6 min 1 sec of audio in all
7 of 17
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
All 6 clips — the highlight moments, each cut as its own audio, with a title and a speaker
All 14 segments — the transcript broken into labeled sections, every ad read marked
All 17 topics — jump to every other episode discussing the same subject
Every related episode — other shows Radar links to this one
No account is needed to search Radar.
