About this podcast

This podcast is founded on the belief that we need our mothers like we never have before. Not just our own mothers, but the mothers of the world.

Remember a time when large families lived in one place and you knew all your neighbors? No? Well, I bet your great-grandmother does! Them's were the days when advice from elders was easy to come by. Today, many of us are separated from our families by physical distance and an ever-widening technological gap between generations. Have you noticed how these new ways of communicating often leave older generations behind and divert our attention away from them? We, the ladies of Advice from Mom, want to do our part to bridge this ever-widening generational divide. We want to bring good old-fashioned life advice to where you already are—in transit, washing the dishes, or on the run, listening to podcasts.

about The podcast

Advice from Mom is equal parts mental health advice and motherly love. It’s a podcast made for anyone who has ever wanted a some seasoned advice on a big life question or a little help getting “unstuck” from an emotionally tricky situation.

Advice from Mom features the advice and life stories of Elizabeth Skibinski-Bortman, PhD. Affectionately known on the show as “Momma B”, Dr. Skibinski-Bortman is a small-town family therapist “on a one-woman mission to mother a mentally healthy world.”

Host Rebecca Garza-Bortman brings a critical and comical angle to the show, keeping her mom on her toes with attentive follow-up questions and, occasionally, improvised musical aphorisms. Rebecca is also a singer and the designer who likes to say: "Advice is like a design solution for our feelings."

Featured as “new and noteworthy” on Apple Podcasts and included on NPR's The Big Listen, this mother-daughter duo also brings you advice from guest experts including couples therapist Esther Perel; dating historian Moira Weigel; actress Michaela Watkins; and NPR's The Kitchen Sisters, as well as crisis counselors, authors, and wise creative professionals of all sorts. As the blog, Constant Listener writes: "The high-wire act of creating a show that is as insightful as it is entertaining is no small feat, but this mother-daughter pair pull it off with seeming ease."

Ask Momma B whatever you like because, as Momma B says, “The only problems are the ones we can’t talk about!” 

ABOUT MOMMA B

For more than thirty years, Dr. Elizabeth Skibinski-Bortman has worked with individuals, families and corporate clients as a therapist, teacher and public speaker. Dr. Elizabeth, licensed psychologist and family therapist, approaches listeners’ concerns in the broader context of family, work and social environments. Guiding them through an assessment of their circumstance, she helps people understand the important roles that others play in their emotional lives and encourages them to explore their options so they can take action, change and grow.

Dr. Elizabeth has a Doctor of Philosophy in Human Learning & Development from the University of Pennsylvania. She completed her externship in family therapy at the Philadelphia Child Guidance Clinic. She now lives in the suburbs of Pittsburgh, where she has her own private practice. In her free time, she enjoys playing Scrabble, Zumba, and a miniaturized tennis-like sport called Pickleball.

ABOUT THE HOST

Rebecca Garza-Bortman is a designer, musician, and host of Advice from Mom. She has spent the past ten years working in San Francisco’s tech and music scenes. She led YouTube’s first visual redesign initiative before joining MasterClass as their first employee and designer. She helped the co-founders design a product & the brand, and build the team to 30 employees before starting her own company, Wise Ones. Wise Ones collects diverse life advice and distributes it in personalized podcasts. Advice from Mom is the company’s first public podcast.

As a singer, Rebecca has fronted the indie bands My First Earthquake and Happy Fangs. She now makes music with her husband, Bryan Garza as Love, Jerks. In September 2015, Rebecca and Bryan performed their own rock opera wedding, featured in Entertainment Tonight, The New York Times, and GQ. She's a proud Pittsburgher and graduate of Carnegie Mellon University, School of Design with a minor in creative writing.

ABOUT THis Production

Making this podcast is a bootstrappin' labor of love (look, Mom, we even sing our ads!).. Since Episode 4, it's been made in creative partnership with editor and audio producer, Juliet Hinely. Juliet has produced podcasts for Audible and immersive audio tours for Detour. She is also an artist, creating experiential site-specific narratives through sound, performance, and installation. She has an MFA in Art and Design from Stamps School of Art and Design and a BFA in Fiber from he Maryland Institute College of Art.  Elaborating on the vestiges of forgotten historic places, she shuffles layers of time and perceptions of place. Rad, huh?

about timing, people. 

Rebecca is at just the right place in life to create this podcast: young enough to relate to twenty-somethings, but old enough to see herself in her mother’s shoes. As a woman contemplating motherhood herself, she can’t help but examine more closely society’s relationship to mothers. As a young person in a youth-obsessed culture, she has the power now to set a precedent and treat her elders as she hopes to be treated one day.