Gloria calls up an old friend, the actress/author/activist Sara Gilbert, best known for playing Darlene on the hit shows Roseanne and The Conners , to talk about how they balance child care with demanding careers in the media. They get into Sara’s experiences with solo parenting, what it’s like bringing an infant onto a Hollywood lot, and how her family approached finding LGBTQ-affirming child care options. Plus, Sara tells the story of when she nearly went into labor on the set of T...
Apr 21, 2022•51 min•Season 2Ep. 6
Gloria sits down with Deb VanderGaast, the Iowa woman running for state senate on a child care platform. Deb, a mother, activist, and child care director, recounts the harrowing story that caused her to leave her stable nursing job to start her own daycare center (despite her family’s warnings not to do so). Plus, she tells Gloria what made her decide to run for office and what her top priorities are if elected. And Gloria gets teary-eyed as she announces our Webby Award nomination for Best Podc...
Apr 14, 2022•43 min•Season 2Ep. 5
Gloria outlines actionable steps for building a better child care system with author and policy expert Elliot Haspel. They discuss how we can work together with businesses to invest in a better system, why we need to reframe child care as a collective responsibility, and what you (yes, YOU) can do to get connected with child care advocates in your community. And if you thought that expanding the public school system down to infants and toddlers might be a way to fix things, Elliot explains why y...
Apr 07, 2022•50 min•Season 2Ep. 4
Gloria explores the child care labor crisis with Dr. Lea Austin, Executive Director of the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment at the University of California, Berkeley. They get into why so many early educators are leaving their jobs, where they’re going to get better wages and benefits, and what we can do to improve pay disparities and racial inequities within the field. Plus, Lea reveals why she’s more hopeful today than she has been in her entire career studying early e...
Mar 31, 2022•44 min•Season 2Ep. 3
Gloria explores how the child care crisis is impacting the people living it every day by talking to a parent and teacher at Ellis Early Learning in Boston. In the second part of our 2-part premiere, she calls up some familiar faces from last season – Shane Dunn and Kiya Savannah. Shane, a parent at Ellis, tells Gloria about how his family has balanced child care and full-time work over the past year, and why he feels like the world is moving on without families with children under 5. Then,...
Mar 24, 2022•29 min•Season 2Ep. 2
Gloria is back and ready to tackle America’s child care crisis head-on. To kick off season 2, she calls up Lauren Cook, CEO of Ellis Early Learning in Boston. We met Lauren back in season 1, where she walked us through the nitty gritty of how much it costs to operate a child care center. This time around, Lauren tears up as she talks about how nationwide labor shortages are reverberating through the child care system, what she has to do to keep the lights on at Ellis, and how the ongoing p...
Mar 24, 2022•38 min•Season 2Ep. 1
If you’re paying attention to the news these days, you’ve seen that childcare is front and center! Congressional leaders are nearing a Halloween deadline to pass two separate bills tied to President Biden’s Build Back Better agenda. One measure, known as the reconciliation package, could dramatically (and instantaneously) change how families approach childcare and early childhood education. To better understand what’s truly at stake for parents & guardians nationwide ...
Oct 25, 2021•34 min
Childcare doesn’t just happen out in the world. It also happens in each and every home where a child lives. In this bonus episode, we hear from Eve Rodsky, the author of Fair Play (Reese’s Book Club October ‘19), about how to create more cooperative homes and families. “While we're waiting for systems to change and fighting for policies, we can also take agency to make things better in our home - to invite men into their full power in the home so that women can step out i...
Jul 22, 2021•17 min•Season 1Ep. 5
Gloria chats with Elizabeth Warren about how we transform our country’s broken childcare system into one that’s accessible for all. “This is the moment to raise your voice. We have this opportunity to do it, but it's going to take all of us to push until it gets done.” Then, we meet a ragtag group of activists in Portland, Oregon fighting for a free, high-quality, universal preschool program in their community. And “Call It Like It Is” correspondent Kristen Be...
Jun 03, 2021•51 min•Season 1Ep. 4
Gloria explores the many places where childcare is working for parents – from Berlin, Germany, to Quebec, Canada, and even Patagonia HQ in Ventura, California. “Women are able to go back to work, families can actually afford good childcare, and the system more than pays for itself? Am I on another planet?” Kristen Bell joins Gloria (from outer space) to clue her in on America’s very own top-secret, high-quality, federally-funded childcare system. Plus, Lauren Kennedy and ...
May 27, 2021•46 min•Season 1Ep. 3
Gloria investigates where everything went wrong for childcare in America, and Kristen Bell joins to give Nixon a piece of her mind. “That's the sound of progress dying in the crucible of American politics.” Gloria digs into the shame, guilt, and divisions baked into our earliest day nurseries, and reveals how old-fashioned gender norms and blatant racism killed promising federally-funded, early childcare programs. With Dorothy E. Roberts, Sonya Michel, Alma Gottlieb, Ruth Hoffman, O&...
May 20, 2021•57 min•Season 1Ep. 2
Gloria breaks down how we’re all breaking down: parents, teachers, and providers. And Kristen Bell joins to “call it like it is” on the cost of childcare. 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 and t...
May 20, 2021•46 min•Season 1Ep. 1
