Kylie Kelce has a knack for turning everyday family life into must-listen radio. In the October 16 episode of her “Not Going to Lie” podcast, she stitched together a trio of topics that lit up her inbox and the internet: the annual chaos of kids’ Halloween costumes, the surprisingly thorny question of what couples should say during pregnancy, and a curveball segment where her producer begs to make every episode longer. The result is part confessional, part comedy, and part practical guide for parents who are just trying to keep it together until bedtime.

The tone is set in the opening minutes. It’s mid-October, the candy bowl isn’t stocked, and Kylie is gleefully off-script, comparing caramel loyalties and confessing her soft spot for Twix. She’s not playing influencer; she’s playing ringmaster, and the circus is her own household: a six-year-old (Wyatt), a four-year-old (Elliot), a two-year-old (Bennett), and a six-month-old baby (Finn). If you’ve ever tried to convince a preschooler that a costume ordered three weeks in advance is still exciting when it finally arrives, you know the plot twist coming next.

Kylie walks listeners through her “three-week rule”—the buffer she builds so the right size shows up before the big night. Kids, she deadpans, consider three weeks an eternity. In that eternity, they will passionately select a costume, forget it exists, and then fall in love with five new options before the original even ships. The rule is sensible. Reality is not.

That disconnect leads to the episode’s centerpiece story: the family costume that wasn’t. Two Halloweens ago, the Kelces planned a photogenic group theme. Jason would be King Triton. Wyatt would be Ariel. Elliot had the sweetest bubble-shaped Flounder suit complete with a tiny tail, and baby Bennett would be an adorable Sebastian. It was coordinated, cute, and ready to go—until Wyatt declared, five minutes before they left the house, that she was going to be a witch instead.

It wasn’t a tantrum; it was a decision. And because the Kelces actually had a hand-me-down witch costume hanging in the closet, the decision stuck. The grand Little Mermaid tableau became King Triton soloing beside Flounder, Sebastian, and one very self-possessed witch. Kylie never put on her Ursula costume—it’s still in a bin—and she reached a conclusion millions of parents will appreciate: family themes are great for Instagram, less great for reality. She’s out on coordinated family looks unless, perhaps, all three girls independently decide they’re Elsa, in which case, so be it.

That anecdote opens the door to the kind of practical wisdom listeners come to the podcast for. Kylie’s costume rules are deceptively simple and instantly usable:

• Avoid anything that provokes “I’m itchy.” Comfort beats couture when you’re negotiating sidewalk miles. Layering a soft tee or leggings under the costume can prevent meltdowns and extend trick-or-treat stamina.

• Don’t pick costumes that will terrify siblings. The lesson was hard-won: an ultra-realistic dinosaur had to be donated within two days because it felt like a lurking monster in the house. When the eyes look too real, the tears get real, too.

• Pro-tail policy. If a kids’ costume comes with a tail, it’s probably adorable, and the photo memories will pay dividends for years.

• Glitter is a trap. The sparkle lives forever and migrates to every surface. Limit it like your sanity depends on it—because it does.

• For diapered littles, prioritize “diaper access.” The moment you zip a baby into a head-to-toe outfit is the moment biology strikes back. Build for speed.

Those guidelines stick because they come wrapped in storytelling rather than scolding. Kylie can laugh at herself, but she doesn’t sugarcoat logistics. And that candor sets up the second half of the episode, where she wades into a viral Reddit debate about couples announcing pregnancy.

The post that set her off was simple: a woman frustrated that her husband kept saying “we’re pregnant.” Kylie’s response is blunt and unforgettable—“Who the f— is we?”—before she relaxes into a more generous take. She understands the impulse behind the phrase. She’s also clear about the limits. In her experience, the body doing the building deserves precise language. The fix she proposes is both kind and accurate: “We’re expecting.”

The difference matters. “Expecting” captures the shared anticipation and preparation without erasing the embodied reality. Kylie remembers the sensory weirdness of pregnancy—the fatigue, the sudden rage at food smells you used to love—and she speaks to it with a shrugging humor that lands because it’s lived-in. “He is not building a human,” she says. “He probably likes the smell of food.” The line isn’t a dig at partners; it’s a plea for clarity and credit.

To make the point more human, she admits she’s caught herself using “we” in old episodes, then self-correcting. She jokes that Jason is a fast learner who likely picked up, without being told, that “we’re pregnant” would not go over well at their house. There’s a humility in that admission: even the most mindful couples adjust their language as they go. Kylie’s on-air verdict doesn’t end with a scold; it ends with a workable script couples can live with—and that’s exactly why it spread.

Just as listeners settle into that rhythm, the episode takes a left turn into behind-the-scenes comedy gold. Producer “Queen Emma” hijacks the show via a self-made TikTok PowerPoint called “Why the 48-Minute Rule Sucks.” Her thesis: the cap forces edits that rob fans of the good tangents; nobody complains about extra time; and “Cool 60” should be the new standard. It’s a love letter to long-form chaos and a wink at the audience who sticks around for the bloopers as much as the headlines.

Kylie loses it. She’s crying laughing, begging to post the bit, and letting listeners in on a truth every creator knows: the best moments sometimes happen after the red light turns off. Whether the clock changes or not, the exchange lands because it’s powered by the same thing that makes the rest of the episode work—trust. The show is edited, sure, but the people inside it feel unedited. That’s rare.

Threaded through all of this is the small stuff that makes the Kelce family feel like people you could sit next to at a school Halloween parade. Kylie’s proud of the one year she made felt costumes (a corn cob and a pea pod) to echo outfits from her own childhood—and equally honest that she didn’t enjoy making them and won’t be doing that again. She’s charitable about why family costumes appeal and frank about why they implode. She’s protective of her kids’ comfort, merciless toward glitter, and uniquely qualified to tell you which costumes will survive the pre-bed meltdown test.

The clarity she brings to language around pregnancy carries the same DNA. “We’re expecting” isn’t just a phrase; it’s a boundary. It says both partners are in it together while honoring the asymmetry of the experience. In a world that can turn the most personal stages of life into content, that distinction is not fussy—it’s respectful.

What makes the episode sticky is the way these themes talk to each other. Halloween is the season of staged perfection: a carousel of family photos in matching costumes posted at golden hour. Kylie cheerfully opts out because the reality in her living room is the reality in everyone’s: kids change their minds, comfort beats optics, and the cutest tail in the world is worthless if it’s itchy. The pregnancy language debate has the same energy. It’s easy to co-opt someone else’s experience with a caption; it’s harder—and better—to find wording that reflects what’s true.

By the time Kylie wraps, you realize why her voice resonates. She is open enough to share the vulnerable or ridiculous parts (the witch costume revolt, the dinosaur exile, her own mean-during-pregnancy hindsight), but disciplined enough to draw lines about credit and care. She can be irreverent without being unkind, and fiercely practical without losing the laugh.

If you’re a parent, you’ll probably screenshot her costume rules and tape them inside a closet door. If you’re expecting, you might retire “we’re pregnant” in favor of a phrase that lands better on both ears. And if you’re a listener who always wants “just twelve more minutes,” you’ll be quoting Queen Emma’s case for a Cool 60 until the show finally caves.

There’s one more quiet lesson tucked between the jokes and the candy talk: the best family stories don’t need perfect staging. They need honest characters and a narrator willing to admit that sometimes the plan turns into a pumpkin at 5:55 p.m. The Kelces will still get out the door—maybe not as Atlantica royalty, but as themselves. And that, in this house and in this show, is always the better costume.

Kylie Kelce didn’t set out to be anyone’s parenting guru. But in an episode that spans trick-or-treat triage, language ethics, and a rogue producer’s TED Talk, she lands on a simple creed that works in October and all year: comfort over optics, credit where it’s due, and make room for the story to run a little long—because that’s where the good stuff lives.