You are listening to Burnt Toast. I'm Virginia Sole-Smith. Today my conversation is with Hayley DeRoche.

Hayley is a humorist, poet, and the creator of the viral “Sad Beige” TikTok series. Her work has been covered by the BBC, Washington Post, New York Times, and more. She lives with her family near Richmond, Virginia, where she is also a public librarian.

Hayley joined me to chat about her new book Dress Your Baby in Sage and Taupe, the origin story of "Sad Beige," perfectionism and performative parenting, plus the beauty and power of mom groups and so much more.

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FREE LISTENERS can find this episode on Apple, Spotify, YouTube or the podcast player of your choice.

PAID SUBSCRIBERS can listen right here on Patreon, or add your member-only feed to the podcast player of your choice.

Paid subscribers also get transcripts, commenting privileges, and our bonus (audio only!) Indulgence Gospel segment. This week Corinne and I are chatting about performative parenting and getting into celebrity mom Jenny Mollen's recent controversial boy mom essay. Don't miss out — join us here!

BUTTER & LINKS

Hayley's Butter: The Baby-Sitters Club Club podcast.

Virginia's Butter: Your kids making slime at home, but with very specific rules (aka slime laws, aka s'laws) about where and what they can put their hands on. Here's our basic recipe and here's everything we're using in our slime station.

Indulgence Gospel: That Jenny Mollen essay and her Instagram. (She also published this follow-up piece after we recorded.) Paid subscribers, we know a lot of you just read transcripts—don't forget to listen to the audio of this episode for our discussion! It's spicy!

You'll want to read Dress Your Baby in Sage and Taupe after hearing this conversation. If you order it from my local independent bookstore, Split Rock Books, you can take 10% off if you have also ordered a copy of my book Fat Talk from them. Go to Split Rock Books and use the code "FATTALK" at checkout.

Now, here's Haley!

https://www.patreon.com/virginiasolesmith/posts/good-moms-dont-160536368/

EPISODE CREDITS

Co-hosts: Virginia Sole-Smith and Corinne Fay. 

Producer:  Kim Baldwin. 

Logo design: Deanna Lowe.

Theme Song: Farideh.

Video Editor: Elizabeth Ayiku

Audio Engineer: Tommy Harron

Follow us on social! 

Virginia is on Instagram and Threads as @v_solesmith and on Bluesky at @virginiasolesmith.  

Corinne is on Instagram at @selfiefay, on Bluesky at @corinnefay and on Patreon at Big Undies.

Support the Me Little Me Foundation, a virtual food pantry supporting multiply marginalized folks recovering from eating disorders.

Thanks for listening and supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism!