Gloria has a heart-to-heart conversation with Waukecha Wilkerson, a student parent advocate and single mom of three, about how her years-long struggle with child care ultimately put her on the path to earning her college degree. Waukecha talks about growing up as a gifted child in Compton, falling in with the wrong crowd, and getting pregnant in her early 20s. Her journey takes her through toxic relationships, job losses, battles with depression, and desperate searches for child care. She tells ...
Dec 01, 2022•42 min•Season 2Ep. 37
One in four people who’ve had an abortion identify as Catholic. That surprised Gloria, as most Catholic leaders are ardently against the procedure. In this episode, Gloria talks with Jamie Manson, the president of Catholics for Choice, and Jeanné Lewis, interim CEO at Faith in Public Life Action, about how abortion rights are viewed across different faiths. They also talk about what the recent midterm election revealed about abortion access, and how, with the right kind of conversation, you migh...
Nov 17, 2022•45 min•Season 2Ep. 36
Gloria kicks off the show by unpacking the numerous abortion rights and child care wins coming out of the midterm elections. Then, she chats with Stephanie Curenton, associate professor at Boston University and the director of their Center for the Ecology of Early Childhood Development. Stephanie talks about her research on the social, cognitive, and language development of low-income and minority children and the work she’s doing to create an anti-bias, anti-racist curriculum rubric for early e...
Nov 10, 2022•40 min•Season 2Ep. 35
Gloria gets a lesson on the nationwide effort to censor classroom discussions on racism and inequality from Morgan Craven and Ben Hodge. First, Morgan, the director of Policy, Advocacy, and Community Engagement with the Intercultural Development Research Association, debunks some of the misinformation about what is being taught in our public schools. Then, Ben, a teacher at Central York High School in Pennsylvania, tells the story of what happened at his school when an all-white school board tri...
Nov 03, 2022•44 min•Season 2Ep. 34
Gloria sits down with NYC Council Member Julie Menin to learn how New York became the first city in the United States to pass universal child care. Julie talks about running a campaign centered on child care, how she convinced her colleagues to vote for this bill, and what will happen now that it’s passed. Plus, they break down what each bill in her package will do, including creating a child care directory and online portal for local, state, and federal child care subsidies. Plus, Julie explain...
Oct 27, 2022•45 min•Season 2Ep. 33
Gloria calls up Lynette Fraga, CEO of Child Care Aware of America, to unpack the many reasons why America’s child care crisis has only gotten worse over the past year, from inflation to the workforce crisis. Lynette explains why the military’s child care system, famous for its high quality and accessibility, is also struggling right now, with more than 11,000 children under 5 in need of a child care spot urgently. Plus, a story from the No One Is Coming to Save Us community about a new mom looki...
Oct 20, 2022•42 min•Season 2Ep. 32
Gloria gets a lesson from journalist Katherine Goldstein about why she no longer uses the term “working mother.” Katherine, who is also the founder of The Double Shift newsletter, podcast, and community, explains why the phrase devalues caregiving, and how it creates an artificial barrier between mothers that prevents them from addressing their shared struggles and concerns. Then, Katherine makes the case for year-round public school and 8-hour school days, and debunks the myth that remote work ...
Oct 13, 2022•47 min•Season 2Ep. 31
The pandemic has brought the fault lines and inequities in our social sectors into sharp focus, perhaps most glaringly child care. The economic and social impacts of our failure to publicly invest in child care have become untenable not only for parents, but also for early education providers and teachers. In our first-ever live episode, Gloria moderates a panel of policy experts, child care advocates, and on-the-ground activists to help us better understand the underlying causes of the child ca...
Oct 06, 2022•1 hr•Season 2Ep. 30
Many of us were left with far more questions than answers when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade this summer. A campaign called Day Without Us, happening on September 30th, is an opportunity to learn more about the fight for reproductive justice in America. Gloria and Leslie Mac, one of the organizers of this national teach-in, discuss how you can participate in Day Without Us, how to continue doing the important work afterwards, and why we need to think of other social justice issues lik...
Sep 29, 2022•43 min•Season 2Ep. 29
Gloria dives into the science of parenting with Chelsea Conaboy, author of Mother Brain: How Neuroscience is Rewriting the Story of Parenthood . They discuss how becoming a parent physically changes your brain, what the science says about the highly-debated “maternal instinct,” and how she hopes these new findings can get more people in this country to value caregivers. Plus, what we know about the brain transformation of non-biological parents. Get your free tickets for the No One Is Coming to ...
Sep 22, 2022•46 min•Season 2Ep. 28
Gloria learns what venture philanthropists are doing to fix early childhood education in this country with David Merage and Sue Renner from the David and Laura Merage Foundation. They discuss the wins they’ve had in their home state of Colorado, what they’ve been able to expand across the United States, and how they’re working to bring business leaders into the fold to be a voice for the voiceless. Plus, David outlines his goal of being able to change the name of the show to Everyone Is Coming t...
Sep 15, 2022•47 min•Season 2Ep. 27
Gloria talks all things care with Ai-jen Poo, President of the National Domestic Workers Alliance. Ai-jen has been advocating for care workers for over twenty years and outlines why caregivers are both undervalued and undercompensated, how the pandemic adversely affected millions of domestic workers, and the urgent need for a national Domestic Workers Bill of Rights. Plus, Gloria and Ai-jen poignantly reflect on how meaningful it was to be able to give their loved ones quality care towards the e...
Sep 08, 2022•48 min•Season 2Ep. 26
Gloria gets an update on the state of child care in this country from Lauren Kennedy and Sarah Muncey, the co-founders of Neighborhood Villages. First, Lauren provides an overview of what’s happening on the legislative front, and tells us what we ended up with in the Inflation Reduction Act. Then, Sarah lays out the realities on the ground, where she says the child care crisis is worse than it’s ever been and why, in spite of that, she considers this to be a very hopeful moment, too. Plus, Laure...
Sep 01, 2022•47 min•Season 2Ep. 25
Listen again as Gloria breaks down how we’re all breaking down: parents, teachers, and child care providers. And Kristen Bell joins to “call it like it is” on the cost of child care. Parents are languishing on waitlists or drowning in tuition bills. Teachers are underpaid. And providers can barely afford to keep the lights on. “We set families up to struggle. We put every barrier we can in their way. And then when they do need assistance, we demonize them as though they've done something wrong a...
Aug 25, 2022•46 min•Season 2Ep. 24
The first chance voters had to weigh in on abortion after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade was in the reliably conservative state of Kansas. And, despite all odds, Kansas voters rejected the GOP-led effort to restrict abortion. Gloria gets the details on the big victory for abortion rights from Rachel Sweet, campaign manager for Kansans for Constitutional Freedom. Gloria and Rachel discuss how the campaign built a pro-choice coalition across party lines, what they heard from voters on ab...
Aug 18, 2022•45 min•Season 2Ep. 23
Gloria takes a look at what it’s like on the ground in a state with some of the country’s most restrictive anti-abortion laws alongside Project Say Something founder Camille Bennett, whose organization confronts anti-Black racism in Alabama. They discuss how Camille is still able to help women in her state, what else conservative politicians want to enact to make life difficult for women in Alabama, and what made her hire security to accompany her at all Project Say Something events. Plus, Camil...
Aug 11, 2022•39 min•Season 2Ep. 22
We rightly celebrated people like health care workers, teachers, and grocery store employees during the heart of the pandemic as the essential workers who kept our country going. But Angela Garbes, author of “Essential Labor: Mothering as Social Change,” tells Gloria that we need to think of parents, and especially mothers, as essential workers, too. They get into why we devalue the labor of mothers and caregivers, how we are in a pivotal moment right now with regards to care in America, and wha...
Aug 04, 2022•44 min•Season 2Ep. 21
Gloria is joined by Jessica Arons, senior policy counsel at the ACLU, to talk about the decades-long legal battle by abortion rights opponents to overturn Roe. They discuss how we got here, what’s being done to get our rights back, and what the Dobbs decision will mean for our already inadequate child care system. Plus, Jessica tells the personal story of what made her devote her life’s work to fighting for reproductive rights. Check out these resources that Jessica mentioned on today’s show: Ke...
Jul 28, 2022•41 min•Season 2Ep. 20
Gloria unpacks the decades-long struggle for reproductive justice in America with Marcela Howell, president and CEO of In Our Own Voice: National Black Women’s Reproductive Justice Agenda. They discuss the barriers to reproductive freedom for Black people, how the Hyde Amendment makes abortion access even harder for low-income individuals, and why we need to focus on state legislative elections to ensure that even more reproductive rights aren’t taken away. Plus, Gloria talks with Daisy Han, fou...
Jul 21, 2022•48 min•Season 2Ep. 19
As we continue to investigate what life looks like for pregnant people and parents in a post-Roe America, Gloria sits down with an abortion clinic nurse who was in the middle of a procedure when the news broke about the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. They talk about what it was like in the clinic that day, what this decision will mean for the country’s remaining abortion providers, and how it will impact those who already have difficulty accessing reproductive care. Plus, she te...
Jul 14, 2022•42 min•Season 2Ep. 18
Gloria is joined by author and activist Lauren Rankin to outline everything you need to know in the wake of the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade. Gloria and Lauren talk about what’s happening right now as a result of this ruling, how and why this decision will disproportionately hurt Black and brown people, and what you can do to support those who need help accessing abortion care. Come for the rage, stay for the actionable steps, and leave with some hope. Follow Lauren on Twitter ...
Jun 30, 2022•45 min•Season 2Ep. 16
It’s not easy for anyone to return to work after becoming a mother, and child care is often the hardest aspect for families to figure out. Track and field star Allyson Felix experienced that firsthand and is determined to make things easier for her fellow athlete moms. And when Allyson sets a goal for herself — whether it’s becoming the most decorated U.S. track and field athlete in history or changing the child care landscape for athlete moms — she accomplishes it. Allyson and Olga Harvey of th...
Jun 23, 2022•47 min•Season 2Ep. 15
Gloria digs into a devastating report on how the pandemic has affected women and their families with Fatima Goss Graves, President and CEO of the National Women’s Law Center. The numbers in this NWLC report, “Resilient But Not Recovered,” are sobering. There are 1.1 million fewer women in the labor force today than there were in February 2020. More than 2/3 of the net jobs lost since the pandemic began were women’s jobs. Only 41% of mothers who left the workforce during t...
Jun 16, 2022•48 min•Season 2Ep. 14
Mom guilt is no joke. You feel it when you drop your kids off at child care, when you check your email during their softball game, when you ask your partner to wake up early with the little ones so you can get a little more sleep on Saturday. But it doesn’t have to be that way! Gloria digs deep into mom guilt, timeouts, separation anxiety, and so much more with Dr. Becky, clinical psychologist and host of the Good Inside podcast. Pop in your earbuds and relax on the couch because this epis...
Jun 09, 2022•53 min•Season 2Ep. 13
There are so many skills young kids need to learn, but what can parents and caregivers do to teach them? First, Gloria learns about the seven essential life skills every child needs with the researcher who developed them: Ellen Galinsky, Chief Science Officer at the Bezos Family Foundation. Ellen tells Gloria that even though games like Simon Says may not have been conceived as a way to teach young kids executive functioning skills, they're actually an incredible way to do just that. Then, Glori...
Jun 02, 2022•53 min•Season 2Ep. 12
Gloria begins the show with her reaction to the unimaginable tragedy in Uvalde, Texas. Then, as America’s infant formula crisis continues, Gloria is joined by Caron Gremont, Director of Early Childhood at the No Kid Hungry Campaign. They discuss the toll that hunger takes on kids, how many childcare workers also face food insecurity, and what you can do to make “no kid hungry” a reality. Follow Caron Gremont on Twitter @carongremont. Keep up with the work of No Kid Hungr...
May 26, 2022•53 min•Season 2Ep. 11
Gloria breaks down everything you need to know about the future of child care policy alongside Julie Kashen, senior fellow and director for women’s economic justice at The Century Foundation. They get into the who/what/when/how/and why of child care reform: who is going to pay for it , what will this package include, when can we expect action, how do we get legislators across the aisle on board, why is it taking so long?!? And Julie tells the heart-wrenching story of a father who had to tu...
May 19, 2022•42 min•Season 2Ep. 10
Gloria calls up Liz Tenety, co-founder of Motherly and host of the Motherly podcast, to compare notes on balancing work and child care with a COVID outbreak in the home. The two of them talk about prioritizing self-care, acknowledging when you need help, and giving yourself permission to not do all the things. Plus, Liz tells a rage-inducing story about how her husband had to battle his own HR department over who, exactly, was the “primary parent” in their household. Kee...
May 12, 2022•44 min•Season 2Ep. 9
Gloria starts with an emotional reaction to the leaked Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Then, she calls up Wendoly Marte, the economic justice director at Community Change, to talk about the organization’s upcoming event, A Day Without Child Care. Wendoly tells us what they’re fighting for, what will be going down on May 9th, and how you can get involved in this national day of action. Plus, Gloria gives us an exciting update on the fight for child care reform in Alaba...
May 05, 2022•50 min•Season 2Ep. 8
Gloria calls up Camille Bennett, an activist, child care center owner, minister, and the founder of Project Say Something, an organization confronting anti-Black racism in her home state of Alabama. Camille paints a picture of child care in the Deep South – one that includes staffing shortages, a broken subsidy system, structural racism, child care deserts, tears, stress, and teachers and parents at their wits’ end. But Camille tells Gloria what’s giving her hope in spite of th...
Apr 28, 2022•48 min•Season 2Ep. 7
