About Coffee & Cocoa: A Conversation About Reconstructing Your Family After They've Deconstructed Their Faith
Coffee and Cocoa is a conversation between a faithful LDS mother and her daughter who has left the church — and proof that families can come back together even when they're walking different paths. If you're an LDS mom navigating a child's faith transition or deconstruction, or an adult child who wishes your mother could really hear you, this podcast was made for you. Pull up a chair. This is the conversation your family needs to have.
Publisher
Kari Bates and Kimberly Bates
Category
religion & spirituality · society & culture · society & culture
What does it mean to be a peacemaker? In this episode of Coffee & Cocoa, Kari shares with Kimberly a presentation she attended by author, professor, and podcaster, Patrick Mason, where he shared four basic tools of peacemaking.
They discuss how people in the church often interpret and teach peacemaking as being passive and submissive and avoiding conflict, and they contrast that with Dallin Oaks recent address at the National Cathedral where he encouraged all people to learn the “language and methods of peacemaking”. They go through Patrick Mason’s four basic tools: normalizing conflict, seeing each other as people, reflecting intentionally on your theory of change, and cultivating inner peace. They talk about how they try to use these tools in their own lives, and how their values motivated the creation of this podcast.
If you struggle with avoiding conflict, or if you need more peace in your relationships, this episode will be helpful for you.
14 Oct 2026
Episode 17: Josie's Story
Our family is a lot bigger than just two people. This week, younger sister, Josie joins Coffee and Cocoa to tell her story for the first time start to finish.
Josie grew up as the “perfect child”: smart, pretty, a people-pleaser, and the girl everyone wanted to babysit their kids, but underneath all that was a lot she didn’t have words for yet.
She talks about growing up with undiagnosed autism and ADHD, tying her worth to her standing in the church, and what it was like when her oldest sibling left and the family stopped talking about it. She also shares what she went through as a teenager, how church leaders responded, and how therapy slowly helped her stop blaming herself. Then Josie, Kari, and Kimberly talk openly about the anger, the estrangement, and what it took to begin rebuilding their relationship.
Content note: This episode includes frank discussion of suicidal ideation, sexual assault and coercion, an emotionally abusive relationship, and a harmful experience with church discipline. Please take care of yourself while listening.
7 Oct 2026
Why Gen Z Women are Walking Away
Season two of Coffee and Cocoa is here! Kari and Kimberly are back from a long break, and they jump right into the conversation that's been all over their feeds while they were away: why so many young women are leaving the LDS Church. Reacting to a Salt Lake Tribune article on the topic, a mother who stayed and a daughter who left take on three reasons women cite for leaving: politics, purity culture, and power and how those dynamics have played out in their own lives. Kimberly adds a fourth from her own observations: women no longer see themselves in the church's model of womanhood. Along the way they talk about Prop 8, "teddy bear Jesus," modesty rules that changed between generations, bioessentialism, the cost of a one-income household, and why Kari stays while understanding exactly why others go.
Reach and audience
Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
Apple Podcasts (US)
5.0 / 5
7 ratings
Spotify
5.0 / 5
4 ratings
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