Parenting, Creativity, and Community: Dr. Charity Marsh on GRR, Queer Family Structures, and Raising Kids in the Arts

In this episode of Parenting Creative, I talk with Dr. Charity Marsh—community-engaged researcher, multidisciplinary artist, parent, and professor of Creative Technologies and Design at the University of Regina.

We explore:

• How creative practice sustains parents through crisis
• The intersection of queerness, parenting, and chosen family
• Charity’s work with GRR (formerly Girls Rock Regina) and its shift toward gender inclusivity
• Raising children in grassroots arts communities
• How art-making with children invites vulnerability, joy, and innovation
• The powerful impact of community radio during the pandemic
• Family structures beyond binaries and embracing new language for kinship

Charity shares her journey as a queer, solo parent raising two creative kids, her reflections on systemic sexism in music culture, and how she models creativity as resistance and resilience.

• Imagine This Music - Radio w/ Kids reflection
• Releasing Perfectionism w/ Amber Goodwyn - Parenting Creative
• Nichole Huck: A Journalist's Perspective on Parenting and Creativity - Parenting Creative
• Welcome to GRR!

To check out Charity's documentary I'm Gonna Play Loud: Girls Rock Regina and the Ripple Effect, email Charity at charity.marsh@uregina.ca for access.

• The story behind the creation of Parenting Creative
• Why “balance” is the wrong goal for creative parents
• Parenting and creating through climate anxiety, social injustice, and digital overwhelm
• How creative practice helps resist burnout, reclaim rest, and build meaningful connection
• An invitation to help shape the next chapter of Parenting Creative

• Rest as resistance
• Reflection as clarity
• Creative expression as processing
• Interdependence and shared learning
• Joy, grief, nourishment, and the art of staying human

Read the evolving vision for Parenting Creative:

In a world that feels unmoored, you're searching for something to hold onto.

Something steady. Solid. Whole.

Parenting Creative is a gathering place for caregivers, meaning-makers, and anyone seeking steadiness in disorienting times.

We explore practices that anchor us: creative expression, joy, interdependence, nourishment, rest, and reflection.

This isn't about finding balance. It's about accountability and belonging—to ourselves, our kids, and each other—in defiance of a world that wants us fragmented.

We don’t have easy answers. But we offer questions worth asking, practices worth returning to, and stories worth sharing.

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And let me know:

• What resonates?
• What’s missing?

DM me or send a voice note. I want your voice in this.

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On this episode, host Nikko Snyder talks to entrepreneur, sex educator, and author Melissa Pintor Carnagey. Based in Austin, Texas, Melissa is the parent of three young people ages 11, 15, and 26. They're also the founder of Sex Positive Families, which delivers inclusive, sex positive, shame-free sex education to families worldwide through their newsletter and online workshops.

Melissa has also written two books, including Sex Positive Talks to Help with Kids: A Guide to Raising Sexually Healthy, Informed, Empowered Young People; and the hot off the presses puberty book for kids 11 to 14 called Growing Into You: An inclusive, shame busting, get real guide to your changing body and mind.

In our conversation we talk about starting your parenting journey as a teenager, tapping into your childhood passions to guide your adult dreams, the journey to becoming a published author, honouring your truth enough to risk leaving a bad situation to start your own business, disrupting the system by living your best life, breaking cycles, and giving ourselves self-compassion and forgiveness for the mistakes we inevitably make in this wild experiment called parenting.

There's a bonus episode of Parenting Creative with even more of our conversation. You can get that by signing up for our free email newsletter.

In addition to bonus content, I use the newsletter to share guest announcements, sneak peeks, glimpses behind the scenes, and deeper reflections on every episode.