I felt an absolute zing of electricity when I opened a message a few weeks ago asking if Shannon Watts could interview ME for her Substack Live series. Along with being a longtime fan of the incredible national movement Shannon has built for common sense gun laws with Moms Demand Action, I love her Substack Playing with Fire . It’s all about prioritizing desires (especially around activism and social change) over social expectations. Her newest book, Fired Up: How to Turn Your Spark Into a Flame...
Mar 18, 2025•28 min
I’m back with an update on what I’ve been working on— The How to Find Your People Club , an IRL community-building project tackling loneliness and disconnection. Plus, exciting news: I’m writing a book! In this episode, I’ll share more about the club, why community matters, and then dive into my latest audio newsletter, How Busyness Stops Us from Meaningful Connection . If you’ve missed hearing from me, come join me on Substack . The written version of this newsletter is here . This is a public ...
Mar 12, 2025•18 min
We are constantly surrounded by aspirational images of human connectedness but according to American Time Use Survey data, Americans' time socializing in person declined 20% from 2003 to 2023. The How to Find Your People Club exists to help you build meaningful relationships, and doing that within a community is an extremely meaningful and practical way to build strong connections. This audio newsletter will explain the difference between friendship and community. While both are very important, ...
Feb 12, 2025•14 min
I am very angry right now. In my community, I’m witnessing a fixable systemic childcare problem be cemented squarely on the shoulders of individual families, rather than those with power and resources collectively addressing a real need. My beleaguered public school district is waving the white flag of surrender to its working parents over our afterschool program. In this week’s audio newsletter, I’ll make a case for why we have to resist the dismantling of safety nets. This is the last free aud...
Mar 13, 2024•12 min
After all of the intensity of being a business lady and switching platforms in the last few weeks, I thought I’d change gears with this occasional beloved series on a wide range of things that make my life better. None of these are a substitute or solution for a robust social safety net or a society that values care, but they are still fun. Nothing in this list is sponsored, and not all require purchases to experience. If you love audio newsletters and what to try out our membership program, go ...
Mar 06, 2024•13 min
In this week’s audio newsletter is an essay about Sophia Chitlik, who is running for NC state senate here in Durham, North Carolina. What excites me the most about Sophia is that she’s promoting a platform we need candidates from across the country to try out. She’s running on care. You can connect with Sophia and read more about her campaign at her website, https://sophiafornc.com . If you love audio newsletters and what to try out our membership program, go to thedoubleshift.substack.com/liste...
Feb 28, 2024•12 min
Welcome to the audio version of The Double Shift newsletter, read by yours truly, Katherine Goldstein. Today’s edition is about my big financial decision to switch newsletter platforms, and what it means to “start over.” I’m ready (with my face scrunched and my fingers crossed) to take the risk of asking my existing members to stick with me by taking a few extra steps to sign up again with their credit cards on Substack. I believe what I do is valuable. I want it to reach more people. I want to ...
Feb 21, 2024•12 min
For some of you, it may have been a minute since you've heard from me since we stopped producing episodes last year. But I want you to know I'm still working hard on all sorts of issues and stories about challenging the status quo of motherhood and beyond. Also, the Double Shift community is thriving! Today I'm sharing some highlights from my new report, A Playbook to Transform How America Cares: The Care Movement’s Winning Tactics, Lessons, and Case Studies from the Pandemic Era and Beyond whic...
Oct 25, 2023•15 min
It’s been a minute since you’ve heard from us, but Katherine is excited to share news about the next chapter of The Double Shift, a newsletter and community that’s a social change laboratory for moms. The Double Shift has always been more than a podcast, and we're embracing our membership community as a place for building connections around political, social and workplace change, transforming families and building a more just future for everyone. We believe in: Solidarity — not advice Bold ideas...
Jun 22, 2022•10 min
The Double Shift podcast launched three years ago to share the real stories of motherhood in America, and radically explore the social forces that make being a mom so challenging. We’ve brought you stories from inside brothels and a 24-hour childcare center; we’ve confronted capitalism, patriarchy, and the idealized myth of nuclear family; we opened up conversations about mental health and its stigma and amplified the voices of people often left out of conversations about motherhood; and we’ve g...
Feb 09, 2022•46 min
For six months last year, tens of millions of families could count on consistent, predictable support from their government to help defray the steep financial cost of raising a child in this country. We hear from moms about how these monthly Child Tax Credit checks helped them support their families, move forward in their careers, make change in their communities, and reduce the psychological trauma of trying to raise a family while living in a constant state of precarity.… and about what life i...
Jan 26, 2022•47 min
Changing workplaces to make them substantially better for moms and caregivers is, in fact, possible. Inspired by our show on paid family leave back in 2019, we hear from some Double Shift listeners who fiercely advocated for -- and got -- better paid family leave at their companies. We are closer than ever before to getting federally funded paid leave for everyone. This is so important, but it’s just one part of an ongoing movement. Today’s episode offers encouragement, some playbook tactics, so...
Dec 08, 2021•45 min
Here at the Double Shift, we love to dismantle stigma through storytelling. So our guest this episode, Kenya Martin (aka "Abortion Diva"), speaks to our souls. Kenya is a former abortion clinic counselor in Texas, current activist, and a mom, who shed the shame she felt about her own abortions and became "loud and proud" about them to help other people feel less alone. As we grapple with Texas’ new abortion restriction law, and the looming Supreme Court decisions that could force more people int...
Nov 24, 2021•51 min
COVID vaccinations for five to 11 year olds are here, and for so many parents and caregivers this moment could not have come soon enough. Others are taking a wait-and-see approach, including many moms who are vaccinated themselves but may feel anxiety about the COVID vaccine when it comes to their kids... and they don't necessarily have access to a doctor or health care worker who can help them sort through the information -- and emotion -- overload that dovetails with socially imposed expectati...
Nov 10, 2021•50 min
While other news outlets have “moved on'' from talking about how mad and burnt out moms are, we’re just getting started. In part two of this intimate, in-the-moment audio diary series, host Katherine Goldstein shares her story of caring for newborn twins and a four-year-old as the coronavirus shut the world down around her. She’s joined by co-host Angela Garbes to discuss the idea that mothers are the unacknowledged essential workers of the pandemic, what’s changed in the year+ since the audio d...
Oct 27, 2021•45 min
Every mother has been touched by the pandemic and every mother has a story that deserves to be heard...including our own host, Katherine Goldstein. In this two-part series, Katherine shares her story of caring for newborn twins and a four-year-old as the coronavirus shut the world down around her. Through intimate, in-the-moment audio diaries, she strips away the tropes around self-sacrificing pandemic motherhood and lays bare the frustration, fear, uncertainty, and anger (so much anger) over ho...
Oct 13, 2021•40 min
While we are on hiatus, check out a show we think you’ll love. It’s called Home. Made. Today we are sharing the full episode of the series, called “Is There A Doctor In The Dollhouse?” It’s about Dr. Kwandaa Roberts, who on the surface appeared to “have it all:” a thriving medical practice, a big house in the suburbs, two kids. But she harbored a secret dream to be an interior designer. Her chance to live this dream came about when she renovated a dollhouse that went viral on social media.... bu...
Aug 04, 2021•30 min
Katherine and Angela have built their careers thinking about motherhood, career and identity. Today, we hear from the Double Shifters who have influenced them most — their own mothers. Angela interviews Kay Goldstein about her trailblazing careers (plural!) as a second wave feminist, how she looks back at her life as a mom in the workforce now, and the lessons she shared with Katherine about not leaving anything on the table. Josie Garbes tells Katherine about her experiences as an immigrant who...
Jun 30, 2021•41 min
A year and a half ago, Shana Thomas was a mom of three who earned a good salary. She’d worked her way up at a company she loved and was telling younger women they could "have it all.” The pandemic changed everything. She's now one of the 4.5 million women who has left employment behind since the start of 2020, and is now an in-home services caregiver for her youngest daughter who’s a wheelchair user, and an unpaid virtual teaching assistant for her older two kids. But nearly a year after leaving...
Jun 16, 2021•39 min
In Part 1 of this series, hosts Katherine Goldstein and Angela Garbes shared their own mental health challenges over the past year. They definitely aren’t the only ones who have struggled -- and in this episode we hear directly from some listeners who’ve sent us voice memos about how they are also not OK. We share some of the most pressing issues we are hearing about with Dr. Amber Thornton, a clinical psychologist and a motherhood wellness consultant. We discuss moms’ needs coming last, challen...
Jun 02, 2021•41 min
The mental health impact, especially on mothers, in the last year has been enormous. But the realities are something that's rarely talked about openly, and still carries a stigma. Hosts Katherine and Angela share their own personal stories of mental health diagnoses and experiences with antidepressants during the pandemic. Resources: If you are needing mental health support, please check out the following organizations: Postpartum Progress Postpartum Support International Hotline : 1-800-944-477...
May 19, 2021•41 min
Right now, all many mothers can think about is just wanting a break from the unrelenting domestic work that last year has heaped on us. In this special Mother’s Day episode, Katherine and Angela explore some fascinating, little-known history that has led our society to expect that mothers’ care work should be a largely uncompensated “labor of love.” We’ll also explore some forgotten moments in the 20th century with journalist and author Sarah Jaffe that gives vital context to how today’s society...
May 05, 2021•41 min
Things may get better this year, but that doesn't erase what we've all gone through. In this episode we explore, how do we grieve during this time when so many have lost loved ones, and even more have experienced personal, professional, and emotional loss? And for mothers, is allowing ourselves to feel our feelings an act of political liberation? We talk to indigenous activist Andrea Landry on how to unwind some of our most backward ideas about motherhood that are rooted in colonialism and how w...
Apr 21, 2021•37 min
After all that talk about other people's finances, Angela and Katherine open up about their own -- and what's uncomfortable for them to admit about being mothers, creatives... and business ladies. They discuss some unvarnished truths about the podcasting industry and running The Double Shift as a business, and also share about the complexities of being a mission-driven enterprise during a time of massive economic uncertainty. If you love the Double Shift Podcast, sign up for our newsletter, thed...
Apr 07, 2021•33 min
When we think about what's happening to moms in America right now, it can feel like a series of anonymous statistics--not millions of life-altering stories. Angela and Katherine talk to a pregnant flight attendant in Indianapolis, a teacher and congressional candidate in Texas, and a performance venue host in New Orleans on what the last year has been like for them. We hear about what the pandemic has cost them -- in dollars, but also in other intangibles. All three women share how they are doin...
Mar 24, 2021•35 min
In the Before Times, Jenna Mason had been cobbling together enough money as a freelance writer and restaurant server to support herself and her two kids -- she has shared custody with her ex-husband. When the world ground to a halt in her town of Oxford, Mississippi, the life she’d built for her family -- and the confidence she felt in herself -- came apart … not in one big crash, but in a cascading series of crises, one leading to another leading to another. On the one year anniversary of the p...
Mar 10, 2021•36 min
It’s been a dark year, so Angela and Katherine wanted to end the season with glimmers of hope for a more just future. We invited author and activist Mia Birdsong on the show to blow our (and your) minds wide open with a conversation about deservedness, the American Dream, and how guaranteed income could help us build a more feminist society. Read Mia Birdsong’s Book, How We Show Up: Reclaiming Family, Friendship and Community . Listen to her podcast, More Than Enough, made in partnership with Th...
Nov 25, 2020•44 min
“If we survive this, and I think we’re going to survive, it’s not because anyone came to save us. It’s because we helped each other.” Author Dani McClain is an unpartnered parent to a 4 year-old. She has spent years researching and reporting on networks of support around raising children in community, grounded in the experience of Black mothers. Dani, Katherine and Angela have an honest, probing, and at times hilarious, conversation about what it means to create community and connect through col...
Nov 11, 2020•48 min
If you are looking for a thought-provoking listen that’s NOT about the election (It’s about feminism and porn!) check out this episode of the new podcast, Embodied, from Double Shift editor Anita Rao and WUNC. This show is an invitation to have conversations that most people consider impolite. Anita believes that pushing past our discomfort with talking about taboo topics will ultimately help us build more empathy and understanding for others…and decrease shame about sex, relationships and perso...
Nov 04, 2020•28 min
The childcare industry in America is facing a huge crisis right now, and we can’t just blame COVID for its near collapse. We explore the attitudes and policies that led to how things got so bad, talk to Angie Garcia, a childcare provider on the ground, and report on an exciting initiative in Portland, OR, that shows us how local communities can begin to meaningfully address this massive systemic problem. Resources: Read more about the UPNOW Portland campaign Special thanks to Lydia Kiesling and ...
Oct 28, 2020•43 min
