(00:00:00.516):
No matter what anyone in my family needs, it's my job and my fault.

(00:00:05.199):
I had to fight with my kid's school to get her IEP honored and then I had

(00:00:09.062):
to suffer being made into the bad guy in the process.

(00:00:11.583):
My husband's always the hero.

(00:00:13.765):
When the therapist assigned to my child had no idea how to treat autistic children,

(00:00:17.907):
I had to learn and I had to teach the therapist and I had to do it in a way

(00:00:21.350):
that didn't offend her.

(00:00:23.331):
It's always been this way.

(00:00:25.132):
I research her medical care and ensure her providers are decent.

(00:00:28.616):
I make sure the childcare provider is actually safe.

(00:00:31.498):
It extends to my husband too, my third child.

(00:00:34.961):
When he got laid off,

(00:00:35.982):
I helped him apply for unemployment,

(00:00:37.783):
helped him search for a job, and emotionally supported him.

(00:00:41.607):
Lately, I've been thinking a lot about what happens when we get sick too.

(00:00:45.249):
The last time we had a stomach virus, it hit my husband first.

(00:00:48.912):
I took care of him.

(00:00:50.374):
I cleaned up the toilet and the bathroom.

(00:00:52.375):
I did the same for the kids.

(00:00:54.137):
When it was my turn, I took care of myself.

(00:00:56.799):
I cleaned up the toilet and the bathroom.

(00:00:58.991):
As women, we never get to expect care.

(00:01:01.792):
And if we do, we're entitled monsters.

(00:01:04.754):
There's no amount of work that patriarchy ever considers too much,

(00:01:08.275):
and no political problem that it isn't all too eager to pretend is

(00:01:11.517):
an individual failing.

(00:01:13.198):
I hate it.

(00:01:14.678):
Hi, I'm Zawn Villines, and this is the Liberating Motherhood podcast.

(00:01:18.400):
Today, we're going to be talking about how women became the social safety net

(00:01:21.722):
with my amazing guest, Jess Calarco.

(00:01:24.683):
Before we get into today's topic, a few administrative updates, as always.

(00:01:28.840):
First and most importantly,

(00:01:30.301):
I'd like to ask you to leave a review on your favorite podcast platform.

(00:01:34.042):
Reviews really can make or break a podcast and are critical to the success of this one.

(00:01:40.065):
Second, storytelling is so crucial to this podcast.

(00:01:44.387):
If you would like to share a story of abuse,

(00:01:46.208):
misogyny,

(00:01:46.868):
motherhood,

(00:01:47.948):
or anything else you think might be relevant,

(00:01:50.129):
you can share a vignette that I might read in a future episode.

(00:01:53.451):
To learn how to do so and to access a wide range of other podcast resources

(00:01:57.452):
and information about my work, Visit liberatingmotherhood.org.

(00:02:02.167):
And finally, as anyone existing as a woman on social media knows, women are under attack online.

(00:02:07.890):
Social media platforms ban feminist and leftist creators from merely existing,

(00:02:12.213):
they fail to promote our work,

(00:02:13.994):
and they make it difficult to build or sustain large audiences.

(00:02:17.416):
We are doing everything we can to push back,

(00:02:19.197):
but we need the assistance of readers and listeners too.

(00:02:23.299):
You can do that by helping to share work, by commenting on it, by liking it.

(00:02:28.760):
This gives the algorithm what it wants and it shows the algorithm

(00:02:32.161):
that feminist content is valuable.

(00:02:34.442):
And unfortunately, that's what we have to do to succeed in a social media saturated world.

(00:02:41.264):
Finally,

(00:02:41.684):
you can find all the books I mentioned on the podcast at

(00:02:44.185):
the Liberating Motherhood bookshop page,

(00:02:46.366):
which also hosts tons of book recommendations and reading lists.

(00:02:49.727):
Visit the page at bookshop.org slash shop slash Liberating Motherhood.

(00:02:55.269):
As always, however you found me, thanks for being here.

(00:02:58.699):
And now I want to tell you a little bit about Jessica Calarco.

(00:03:02.141):
Dr.

(00:03:02.481):
Jessica Calarco is a professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison,

(00:03:07.444):
an expert on inequalities in family life and education,

(00:03:10.506):
and the author of four books,

(00:03:11.967):
including Holding It Together, How Women Became America's Safety Net.

(00:03:16.350):
In her latest book,

(00:03:17.170):
Holding It Together,

(00:03:19.251):
Calarco reveals how we force women to be America's social safety net,

(00:03:22.874):
what the weight of that responsibility is doing to women,

(00:03:25.814):
And why so many Americans believe the myth that we're doing just fine.

(00:03:29.637):
The book combines historical and policy analyses with original survey data

(00:03:33.539):
and vivid portraits drawn from more than 400 hours of interviews with families from

(00:03:37.402):
a wide range of backgrounds.

(00:03:39.943):
Calarco received a PhD in Sociology from the University of Pennsylvania and a BA

(00:03:44.366):
in Sociology and Education from Brown University.

(00:03:47.535):
Jess, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.

(00:03:50.118):
Zawn, thank you so much for having me.

(00:03:52.060):
I am a big fan of your podcast for many reasons,

(00:03:55.003):
and I especially love the vignettes that your listeners share with you.

(00:03:59.548):
As a qualitative researcher,

(00:04:01.310):
that willingness of people to share their stories that others can connect

(00:04:04.453):
with is something I deeply value, and I'm sure that your listeners do as well.

(00:04:09.275):
I love that people keep sharing these stories.

(00:04:11.896):
So there you go, y'all.

(00:04:13.276):
You got to hear the vote for more stories and share those vignettes

(00:04:16.217):
because we really do love them.

(00:04:18.598):
So as I told you before we started recording,

(00:04:21.679):
I actually found your book at the bottom of a pile of children's books in

(00:04:25.501):
the kids section in my local bookstore.

(00:04:28.282):
And I sort of had this vision of a mother contemplating getting it and

(00:04:32.223):
then probably either deciding to get something else for her kid Or like noticing

(00:04:36.541):
that her kid had like taken off their clothes and was throwing them at someone

(00:04:40.043):
and having to run away.

(00:04:41.024):
And that just seemed like such an appropriate way to be introduced to your book.

(00:04:45.768):
So I was not familiar with your work until I found this book.

(00:04:48.950):
And it was such a gift for the wild children's section to give it to me.

(00:04:54.914):
So I'm so glad that happened.

(00:04:56.576):
But tell listeners a little bit about your book.

(00:04:59.898):
What inspired you to write it?

(00:05:01.679):
What you hope it accomplishes?

(00:05:03.040):
That sort of thing.

(00:05:04.365):
Sure.

(00:05:04.846):
Well, first,

(00:05:05.567):
I think that's an absolutely fitting description of,

(00:05:07.750):
you know,

(00:05:08.271):
the way that motherhood works in our society in the sense of moms thinking,

(00:05:12.898):
you know,

(00:05:13.359):
maybe there's this little bit of hope for myself or this thing

(00:05:15.562):
that can help me make sense of the world.

(00:05:16.944):
And then, you know, all of the kids stuff, all of the life stuff.

(00:05:19.147):
So, yes, that's such a fitting story.

(00:05:25.256):
In terms of the book, I mean,

(00:05:26.698):
what I'm trying to do with this story and where this book came from,

(00:05:31.044):
it wasn't the book I intended to write,

(00:05:33.387):
in part because These were data that I'd initially collected.

(00:05:37.092):
My early research was on inequalities in education.

(00:05:39.656):
And then I had my own two kids in 2014 and 2017.

(00:05:43.201):
And I wasn't in a life place where I could go do another ethnographic study

(00:05:46.606):
of schools, kind of embed myself in schools and communities.

(00:05:49.791):
And I was also struggling with child care challenges and other kinds

(00:05:53.314):
of motherhood related issues in my own life.

(00:05:56.216):
And so I pivoted to developing this study that I thought of at the time as

(00:05:59.419):
the best laid plans of parenting.

(00:06:00.941):
I was interested in how do moms develop ideas about the ways they want

(00:06:04.844):
to raise their kids and then what happens when things go wrong.

(00:06:08.987):
When things don't go as planned at the very least.

(00:06:11.328):
I started following this group of 250 moms.

(00:06:14.349):
I was a professor in Indiana at the time through their first couple of years postpartum.

(00:06:20.631):
The goal was to trace their lives and decisions over time.

(00:06:24.552):
The pandemic ended up happening in the middle of data collection for that project.

(00:06:29.594):
I have my own two kids at home,

(00:06:31.497):
and all of these moms are now struggling with all of the added weight

(00:06:35.142):
and added responsibility of the pandemic on top of their normal inequalities

(00:06:40.250):
in caregiving relationships.

(00:06:42.333):
And so that's part of where this book came from.

(00:06:43.995):
I was seeing this moment where we could have built something better,

(00:06:48.719):
where we saw maybe more clearly than ever how much weight we were putting on women,

(00:06:54.144):
not only to do the normal work of childcare and housework and caring

(00:06:59.729):
for aging parents, but how that was amplified in the context of the pandemic.

(00:07:05.493):
Expecting moms to cover for their coworkers when they got sick,

(00:07:10.736):
or make sure that their neighbors had meals when they got sick,

(00:07:13.337):
or make sure that grandma got her medications because she couldn't safely go to

(00:07:17.199):
the doctor anymore.

(00:07:18.400):
That became this bigger question of the book.

(00:07:23.262):
Why do we not invest in the kinds of social safety nets and the kinds of support

(00:07:27.426):
and policies that would actually,

(00:07:29.048):
you know,

(00:07:29.769):
not only help women to manage their own responsibilities better,

(00:07:33.292):
but ideally create more stability and more security in society as a whole.

(00:07:37.576):
You know,

(00:07:37.797):
we have a situation where,

(00:07:39.438):
you know,

(00:07:40.319):
women are not only doing the vastly Outsized share of unpaid and underpaid labor in

(00:07:46.219):
the U.S.,

(00:07:46.719):
but they're also kind of playing this role of filling in the gaps in the safety net.

(00:07:50.922):
Instead of universal health care,

(00:07:52.243):
we have women running GoFundMe campaigns for their friends who get cancer.

(00:07:55.806):
Instead of universal elder care or old age pensions,

(00:07:58.748):
we have daughters taking care of their aging parents.

(00:08:00.870):
And instead of universal child care,

(00:08:02.311):
we often have moms quitting their jobs to stay home full time.

(00:08:05.913):
And so these are the questions that were motivating me when writing this book is,

(00:08:10.196):
how did we get here?

(00:08:11.557):
And what I found in the process of digging not only through my own data,

(00:08:15.259):
following these moms over time,

(00:08:16.840):
but putting that in conversation with research from history and research from policy

(00:08:20.722):
and economics is that, yes, it's patriarchy.

(00:08:23.444):
Yes, that's a big part of the story,

(00:08:24.965):
but it's also much bigger than that because patriarchy is really wrapped up in

(00:08:30.007):
and empowered by these bigger systems,

(00:08:32.909):
things like capitalism and racism and neoliberalism.

(00:08:35.931):
And so what I try to show in the book is how These kinds of systems,

(00:08:39.813):
how things like neoliberal free market policies have promoted what I talk about as

(00:08:44.577):
a trickle down of care,

(00:08:45.797):
where they're incentivizing, yes,

(00:08:47.539):
men to push care work onto women,

(00:08:49.760):
oftentimes in their families,

(00:08:51.281):
but that they're also incentivizing women in more privileged positions

(00:08:54.764):
to push care further downstream onto women,

(00:08:57.906):
often immigrant women, women of color, other low income women.

(00:09:01.317):
Who are in a more vulnerable position and who can thereby be forced to do

(00:09:05.220):
the underpaid work of care.

(00:09:06.440):
And so that's really what I'm trying to show in the book is the history and

(00:09:09.562):
the policies that have gotten us to this point where all of us have an incentive

(00:09:13.625):
to push work,

(00:09:14.786):
to push care work downstream as opposed to doing more of that work ourselves.

(00:09:21.350):
Yeah, it's really interesting to me while I'm listening to you talk.

(00:09:27.234):
So when I was getting ready for this interview,

(00:09:29.915):
I went digging through your CV because I'm always interested to see kind

(00:09:32.797):
of like how people become who they are and how they start writing the things

(00:09:35.859):
that they do.

(00:09:37.260):
And I found a lot of your work on inequality in education, how parents influence education.

(00:09:43.624):
And it really,

(00:09:46.006):
that in conjunction with your book really resonated with my own experience as

(00:09:49.968):
a parent,

(00:09:50.548):
which is that There's so much labor that parents and other caregivers,

(00:09:56.815):
and when I say parents,

(00:09:57.676):
I really mean mothers,

(00:09:59.017):
have to do to help their kids have a good educational experience,

(00:10:03.119):
particularly if those kids have special needs.

(00:10:07.082):
And how kids who have parents who can't do that or won't do that really miss out.

(00:10:13.907):
And I just,

(00:10:15.508):
I wanted to see if you might want to like connect some of your earlier scholarship

(00:10:19.410):
to this issue.

(00:10:20.967):
Yeah.

(00:10:21.748):
Oh, gosh, absolutely.

(00:10:22.649):
I mean, and so the earlier research that I've done is mostly on inequalities

(00:10:26.813):
and relationships between families and schools in the sense that,

(00:10:29.756):
you know,

(00:10:30.216):
as you were saying, yes,

(00:10:32.318):
we have a public education system in the U.S.,

(00:10:35.181):
but at the same time,

(00:10:36.302):
your ability to access the kinds of You know,

(00:10:40.557):
opportunities that exist within that system or to use that system to get ahead,

(00:10:44.618):
to achieve upward mobility or maintain your class position in society depends

(00:10:49.359):
a great deal on having parents who can help you navigate the school system,

(00:10:53.400):
who can step in and intervene when things go wrong,

(00:10:55.840):
who can help you with homework at home and get the homework done

(00:10:59.021):
and make sure it's still in your backpack when you get to school.

(00:11:01.722):
And so much of that labor falls to moms.

(00:11:04.162):
So much of that labor of trying to help kids,

(00:11:06.343):
you know,

(00:11:07.784):
What I talk about in my first book is negotiate opportunities for themselves.

(00:11:11.269):
That this isn't something we can easily take for granted and that we live in

(00:11:15.275):
a society,

(00:11:15.875):
we live in this DIY society where we're all expected to take care of ourselves

(00:11:19.781):
in ways that amplify the pressure on families.

(00:11:22.805):
Parents can't just sit back and assume that their kids are going to be fine,

(00:11:26.766):
in part because the inequalities are stacked against us.

(00:11:29.806):
And that creates these kinds of incentives for parents,

(00:11:33.307):
especially mothers,

(00:11:34.207):
to invest as much time and energy and resources as possible to help their kids

(00:11:40.048):
to secure a solid position in society and to help their kids overcome barriers,

(00:11:45.129):
like you were saying,

(00:11:45.789):
with kids with disabilities or other kinds of challenges that they're facing.

(00:11:49.830):
And yet, you know, there are other ways of doing this.

(00:11:51.914):
You know,

(00:11:52.154):
we could,

(00:11:52.715):
with better policies,

(00:11:53.736):
take so much of that pressure off of moms,

(00:11:56.560):
off of families,

(00:11:57.362):
make sure that kids are able to not only get a high quality education,

(00:12:01.167):
regardless of their backgrounds, but have a stable, secure life in adulthood.

(00:12:05.233):
But instead, we push that work onto mothers.

(00:12:07.737):
We push that work onto families in ways that creates not only an immense amount

(00:12:12.804):
of stress for mothers,

(00:12:13.745):
but that also amplifies inequalities because a lot of families aren't in the kind

(00:12:17.090):
of position where they can do that work for their kids.

(00:12:19.513):
They can't have someone home after school to help with homework or a kid can't rely

(00:12:24.096):
on being able to call mom or dad to drop off a project that they left behind

(00:12:28.119):
and didn't make it on the bus with them in the morning.

(00:12:30.741):
And so those kinds of inequalities can also compound in ways that perpetuate race

(00:12:35.664):
and class differences in kids' outcomes over time.

(00:12:39.047):
Yeah,

(00:12:39.247):
I think it's such a crucial point that at a time of immense economic inequality,

(00:12:45.511):
economic insecurity,

(00:12:47.913):
All of the challenges of capitalism that we're all seeing and all of

(00:12:51.074):
the other intersecting oppressive systems,

(00:12:54.375):
there's so much pressure to give kids an advantage in any way that we can.

(00:12:59.938):
And I think it's really easy to dismiss moms as like crazy and unreasonable

(00:13:05.740):
for like enrolling their kids in lots of activities and like helping their kids

(00:13:08.901):
with homework and doing these supplemental camps and all of this.

(00:13:11.682):
And I hear people talk about mothers who do this very derisively,

(00:13:16.184):
but to me,

(00:13:17.967):
It's a sign of how scared they are,

(00:13:20.168):
how scared we all are,

(00:13:21.668):
how none of us really know how to help our kids be successful in a world

(00:13:26.649):
where increasingly we don't even know what success is and it's just hard.

(00:13:32.191):
So I wonder if you could talk a little bit about the connection between sort

(00:13:36.492):
of wider economic insecurity and so much more work being foisted onto mothers

(00:13:42.694):
and families.

(00:13:44.019):
Yeah, absolutely.

(00:13:45.102):
And so this gets down to the fact that care is really incompatible with capitalism

(00:13:50.737):
in the sense that The labor of caring for other people,

(00:13:54.294):
especially people who can't take care of themselves,

(00:13:57.415):
is incredibly time and energy and often resource intensive.

(00:14:02.198):
And yet the people who need the most care in our society often can't afford

(00:14:06.279):
to just outsource that labor to somebody else.

(00:14:08.921):
They need someone to take care of them for either low pay or nothing at all.

(00:14:13.883):
And so the way that we solve that problem as a society Rather than treating care as

(00:14:18.065):
a public good and something that we're all entitled to across our life course,

(00:14:22.610):
is to tell people,

(00:14:23.430):
you know,

(00:14:23.711):
either find a way to pay for it or find,

(00:14:25.813):
you know, someone to do that care for you instead.

(00:14:28.415):
And so, so much of that labor,

(00:14:29.857):
you know,

(00:14:30.537):
in that kind of a system,

(00:14:31.698):
you know,

(00:14:32.559):
all of us have an incentive to find someone who will take on,

(00:14:35.923):
you know, as much of the care work that we've been doing.

(00:14:40.545):
But at the same time,

(00:14:41.984):
you know,

(00:14:42.285):
for those who are in more vulnerable positions,

(00:14:44.486):
often in the context of patriarchy, that's women.

(00:14:46.648):
And then when you add layers of racism and other kinds of inequalities on top of

(00:14:50.330):
that, that's disproportionately women of color and low income women.

(00:14:53.703):
Who are put in a position where they not only have to take on that kind of unpaid

(00:14:59.545):
and underpaid labor to care for themselves and their families,

(00:15:03.006):
but also end up being pushed in many cases into the underpaid caregiving jobs,

(00:15:06.787):
the jobs as home health aides,

(00:15:08.647):
as child care providers,

(00:15:09.967):
to do that work for those who have a little bit more money to try to outsource

(00:15:13.628):
that labor.

(00:15:14.329):
And it's a really challenging Deeply pernicious system that is rooted in this kind

(00:15:19.254):
of economic inequality that pushes all of us to try to maximize the amount

(00:15:23.641):
of money we can get from our paid jobs and find someone else to do the kind

(00:15:27.767):
of undervalued labor that we often think of as care.

(00:15:31.312):
So that kind of system,

(00:15:32.794):
we see that economic precarity play out with why moms feel like they often have

(00:15:36.820):
to do so much of this extra labor to take care of their kids

(00:15:40.164):
and help their kids be able to get to a place where they feel economically secure

(00:15:43.749):
in their lives.

(00:15:44.831):
But we can also see that in echoes.

(00:15:46.753):
We know that even men who embrace egalitarian attitudes,

(00:15:51.694):
who embrace egalitarian, they want to be equal partners.

(00:15:54.854):
When push comes to shove,

(00:15:55.935):
they often end up pushing more of that work onto their wives,

(00:15:59.355):
onto the women around them,

(00:16:00.996):
in part because there's so much economic pressure for them to just get ahead

(00:16:05.276):
in any way possible.

(00:16:06.717):
And a lot of the privileged moms that I've talked to,

(00:16:08.717):
economically more privileged moms that I've talked to,

(00:16:10.577):
feel similarly about the way they use their childcare providers in the sense

(00:16:13.678):
that they'll talk about how I wish that we could afford

(00:16:16.818):
to pay our childcare provider more.

(00:16:18.459):
I know that the women of color who are watching my kids are struggling economically.

(00:16:22.899):
They don't have health insurance.

(00:16:24.160):
They have these huge medical bills,

(00:16:25.540):
but I can't afford to pay any more and be able to still afford my lifestyle

(00:16:30.681):
or be able to afford to think about having a second child.

(00:16:33.261):
And so it's these deeply unequal economic systems that incentivize so much

(00:16:38.482):
of what we often think of as bad behavior and leave us ridden with guilt in

(00:16:44.183):
the process too.

(00:16:46.344):
God, yes, the guilt.

(00:16:47.544):
So I was thinking about my experience as a caregiver for my mother who had dementia

(00:16:54.446):
and died a couple of years ago and how this,

(00:16:56.887):
you know,

(00:16:57.487):
I think we often think about the caregiver stuff as primarily caring for children,

(00:17:02.108):
but this doesn't just affect women who have children.

(00:17:05.169):
And so one of the things that happened is, you know, you reach a

(00:17:12.044):
Family care is not really possible because one person can't do all of the care.

(00:17:16.948):
So then you have to start finding outside sources of care.

(00:17:20.411):
And of course, those are going to be underpaid and exploited people.

(00:17:24.074):
And then the other thing that happens is that

(00:17:26.916):
the medical system has great difficulty managing dementia

(00:17:31.660):
and great difficulty even just talking honestly about what dementia is.

(00:17:35.583):
And so then you have to have this expertise when you go meet with doctors

(00:17:39.206):
and you have to Sort of read between the lines of what they're saying

(00:17:42.997):
and make all these decisions that you have not been trained to make.

(00:17:47.560):
And so what we ended up doing is we ended up hiring a geriatric social worker

(00:17:52.624):
to help us navigate all of this so that we could make good decisions for my mom.

(00:17:58.148):
And then she's kind of in charge of trying to find people to fill various care rules for her.

(00:18:05.073):
Meanwhile, my husband and I He's an attorney and I'm a writer.

(00:18:10.681):
And we're both trying to take on as many extra clients as we can so that we can pay

(00:18:15.665):
for all of this extra care.

(00:18:17.846):
And the cost is just truly unbelievable and not a cost

(00:18:23.650):
that individuals can reasonably be expected to shoulder.

(00:18:26.933):
And we really struggled with it.

(00:18:29.995):
And I came away from the experience just horrified at what might happen in a family

(00:18:35.919):
that Where there's not the option to take on additional clients

(00:18:39.705):
and destroy your life in that way to help a family member and where you just have

(00:18:44.450):
to like hope that they're okay because you can't pay for the care they need.

(00:18:49.176):
And I think that really exemplifies the sort of lack of a social safety net

(00:18:54.643):
that you're talking about.

(00:18:56.667):
Yeah, so much so.

(00:18:57.708):
I mean, I think people often assume that because we have Social Security,

(00:19:01.289):
because we have Medicare, that we've solved the old age care problem.

(00:19:04.891):
And yet that's so far from the truth in the sense

(00:19:07.632):
that Medicare doesn't cover home health care,

(00:19:11.394):
or at least not long term home health care.

(00:19:14.115):
In the ways that many people,

(00:19:15.756):
especially people who are dealing with dementia or other types

(00:19:18.198):
of cognitive conditions, need as they get older.

(00:19:21.960):
And certainly Social Security is not enough for most people to be able to live on,

(00:19:25.782):
let alone afford the level of care that they need in old age.

(00:19:29.184):
And we used to have pensions,

(00:19:32.566):
and yet part of the neoliberal policy structure that we've moved toward

(00:19:35.788):
in recent decades is to force people who have any sort of retirement savings

(00:19:39.650):
to put it into the market instead,

(00:19:41.311):
and to put it at the whims of And that's,

(00:19:44.655):
you know, a place where more of that economic precarity comes in.

(00:19:48.260):
And, you know,

(00:19:48.921):
a lot of folks,

(00:19:49.602):
especially women,

(00:19:50.944):
don't have any retirement savings under this kind of a system,

(00:19:53.528):
especially those who have left the workforce to be able to care for their children

(00:19:57.193):
or care for their parents.

(00:19:58.315):
And it creates this vicious cycle where families are expected to fill in the gaps.

(00:20:02.962):
And yeah, it's a level of financial commitment that is impossible for many families.

(00:20:09.471):
And in the process,

(00:20:10.993):
there's lots of women, yes,

(00:20:11.915):
we often talk about Yeah,

(00:20:13.056):
so one thing that I am seeing more and more that I find really troubling

(00:20:40.611):
Is the stigmatization of any kind of paid care.

(00:20:44.112):
And, you know, I mean,

(00:20:45.612):
I think that we can both agree that people should not be exploited

(00:20:49.673):
in caregiving roles and that they often are,

(00:20:51.574):
particularly when they're in a private home.

(00:20:54.734):
But even our,

(00:20:55.955):
you know,

(00:20:56.255):
non-human primate cousins,

(00:20:59.115):
well, they don't hire as far as we know, but they use care providers.

(00:21:02.816):
You know, they'll leave the baby with an aunt or a sister.

(00:21:06.757):
You know, they care for each other.

(00:21:08.518):
It is never just One person isolated providing the care.

(00:21:13.059):
That's just not healthy.

(00:21:15.520):
It's often not possible.

(00:21:17.801):
And, you know,

(00:21:18.441):
we see this with the idea that we should not hire people to care for aging parents,

(00:21:23.423):
but we especially see it with the stigmatization of daycare and nannies

(00:21:28.525):
and other child care providers.

(00:21:30.426):
And I even see it in feminist circles,

(00:21:32.407):
this just taken for granted idea that the ideal is a mother at home 24-7,

(00:21:40.238):
Never away from her child.

(00:21:41.858):
And to me,

(00:21:42.819):
this ideology really helps feed our belief that a social safety net is

(00:21:48.240):
for like lazy people,

(00:21:50.340):
people who need the wrong choices, people who are not parenting right.

(00:21:54.762):
Can you speak a little bit to why we spend so much time stigmatizing any kind of paid care?

(00:22:01.886):
I see this as deeply rooted in neoliberal ideology.

(00:22:05.327):
You know,

(00:22:05.647):
neoliberalism in a nutshell is this idea

(00:22:08.508):
that societies don't need social safety nets because people can take care

(00:22:13.690):
of themselves.

(00:22:14.350):
And in fact,

(00:22:14.910):
that societies are better off without social safety nets because when

(00:22:18.192):
the government takes care of people, people won't make as good of choices.

(00:22:21.773):
They won't work as hard to protect themselves from risk or

(00:22:24.654):
to make those quote unquote good choices that you were talking about.

(00:22:28.235):
And yet,

(00:22:28.755):
you know,

(00:22:29.195):
as we were talking about before,

(00:22:31.676):
There are so many people in our society who can't take care of themselves,

(00:22:34.841):
the children, the sick, the elderly, people who are dealing with economic precarity.

(00:22:39.608):
There's lots of folks who need more support and can't simply pull themselves up

(00:22:43.774):
by their own bootstraps.

(00:22:46.538):
Women at home,

(00:22:48.321):
out of the paid workforce,

(00:22:49.843):
it might seem like, oh,

(00:22:50.684):
isn't that counterproductive from a neoliberal perspective

(00:22:54.029):
since they're not making money for the economy?

(00:22:58.836):
But essentially the labor that they're doing at home The problem hides the fact

(00:23:03.642):
that not having a social safety net is destroying our society.

(00:23:08.026):
So we're essentially using women's unpaid labor as a way to make it seem as

(00:23:12.710):
though we can get by without that kind of government investment in social safety net

(00:23:18.396):
that many of our other high income country peers take for granted.

(00:23:21.899):
And so the more that we put that work onto women,

(00:23:24.541):
the more that we Emphasize this idea that it should be a mother with her child

(00:23:29.725):
at home.

(00:23:30.546):
And the more fear we wrap up around that,

(00:23:33.087):
the easier it is to justify this system where we don't invest in

(00:23:37.330):
the social safety net and to vilify the people who do need support from

(00:23:41.273):
that social safety net in ways that keep taxes low for the billionaires and now

(00:23:45.295):
the trillionaires and that prevent corporations from having to pay their fair share

(00:23:50.279):
to take care of people in our society.

(00:23:52.740):
And I think the thing to keep in mind here,

(00:23:54.961):
there's a lot of research that shows that neoliberalism,

(00:23:58.182):
these kind of anti-social safety net ideas, they bridge party lines in many cases.

(00:24:04.443):
And they also open the door for the kind of authoritarianism that we're seeing in

(00:24:08.485):
the U.S.

(00:24:08.905):
right now because they encourage us to be so insular,

(00:24:12.586):
to only think about taking care of ourselves instead of taking care of each other.

(00:24:16.987):
And I think that's,

(00:24:18.328):
it really speaks to this question of why are we putting so much on individual women

(00:24:24.450):
and why are we so skeptical of this notion of shared care and of paying

(00:24:29.492):
for care even.

(00:24:30.833):
And I think it's because our willingness to care for each other is one of

(00:24:34.554):
the biggest threats to authoritarianism.

(00:24:37.215):
When we are able to and willing to create sustainable networks of care

(00:24:41.658):
that include paid caregivers or extra-familial caregivers,

(00:24:45.300):
when we're willing to invest in that as a necessity,

(00:24:49.803):
as an essential resource, as a public good, that's where we are strongest.

(00:24:54.166):
And that's where we have the chance to push back against things like authoritarianism.

(00:24:58.669):
But it's the kind of thing that is a big threat to those currently in power.

(00:25:02.592):
This importance of community.

(00:25:05.567):
It is really something I see over and over again in my own work

(00:25:08.949):
because what I observe is that women individualize their political struggles.

(00:25:15.352):
They think that the reason motherhood or any kind of caregiving really is hard

(00:25:18.934):
for them is because of some personal failing.

(00:25:21.015):
You know,

(00:25:21.215):
they're not organized enough or they're not healthy enough

(00:25:24.396):
or it's their crazy woman hormones or whatever.

(00:25:27.678):
And then when they truly connect with other women and And are able to be honest

(00:25:33.452):
about what's happening in their own lives.

(00:25:37.573):
Their minds are blown and they're like, oh my God, it's the same in every family.

(00:25:43.075):
And these misogynist men are behaving the same in every family.

(00:25:46.377):
And every family is struggling with these exact same challenges.

(00:25:50.619):
And they're always just like, I thought it was just me.

(00:25:53.880):
And so it seems to me that separating women from each other...

(00:25:59.401):
And also stigmatizing,

(00:26:01.522):
just complaining,

(00:26:02.662):
being able to speak frankly about what you're dealing with is a great way

(00:26:08.404):
to destroy community and make women unable to band together for political change.

(00:26:15.487):
And you talk in your book about sort of the like social norms that contribute to some of that.

(00:26:21.268):
I'm just wondering if you might talk a little bit about like the destruction

(00:26:24.690):
of community,

(00:26:25.410):
the destruction of like honesty between women and how that

(00:26:29.150):
That undermines political change.

(00:26:32.012):
Yeah, gosh.

(00:26:32.852):
And that's, you know, part of what drew me to sociology.

(00:26:35.434):
You know, I'm a professor of sociology and I think about sociology.

(00:26:39.949):
Yes, it's sort of the study of society and social life,

(00:26:42.658):
but I also see it as a really powerful tool for ungaslighting.

(00:26:45.879):
And I talk about that in the book.

(00:26:47.427):
This notion that when we can see the social systems,

(00:26:49.789):
when we can look behind the curtain and understand that this isn't just us,

(00:26:54.653):
that it's not you,

(00:26:55.614):
it's society,

(00:26:57.215):
that that is incredibly powerful in terms of helping people

(00:27:00.578):
to become politically aware,

(00:27:02.480):
to look for community in others,

(00:27:03.781):
to not blame themselves and fall into that kind of gaslighting.

(00:27:06.803):
And yeah,

(00:27:07.163):
I think we've done so much society and even globally to try to destroy opportunities

(00:27:13.787):
for connection among women,

(00:27:14.848):
that this kind of fear mongering that you're talking about,

(00:27:17.449):
that the back half of holding it together is digging into a series of myths

(00:27:22.492):
that are used to dilute us into believing that we don't need a social safety net and

(00:27:26.854):
to keep us divided by gender, by race, by class, by politics, by religion.

(00:27:31.777):
In ways that keep us from coming together to demand the kind of support

(00:27:36.221):
that we desperately need and that would better support us all.

(00:27:39.944):
I know that includes myths like the myth of the supermom,

(00:27:42.286):
this idea that,

(00:27:43.327):
you know,

(00:27:43.587):
kids are under threat and only moms can keep them safe and that they have

(00:27:46.830):
to sacrifice themselves to do that.

(00:27:48.631):
Or, you know,

(00:27:49.332):
the myth of meritocracy,

(00:27:50.353):
the idea that people can just make good choices and pull themselves up out

(00:27:54.036):
of any kind of,

(00:27:54.837):
you know,

(00:27:55.437):
hardship that they're facing and that the people who've Been successful

(00:27:58.599):
in our society, are successful because of the choices that they've made.

(00:28:01.980):
And so what I try to do in the book is show how those myths,

(00:28:05.421):
those cultural influences can lead even people who might benefit from

(00:28:10.922):
a stronger social safety net to be skeptical of the need for those kinds

(00:28:15.123):
of public investments and certainly can be used to vilify those

(00:28:20.104):
who need more support and who are struggling under the kinds of current conditions

(00:28:24.605):
that we have.

(00:28:27.352):
So I got this hate mail from this man this morning,

(00:28:30.475):
like right as I was getting ready to get on with you.

(00:28:33.637):
And it was so funny because it was so topical in a weird way.

(00:28:38.061):
And, you know, there was a lot of profanity, of course, and a lot of threats.

(00:28:41.984):
But one of the things that he said about his wife is

(00:28:45.347):
that parenthood had been unbearable for him because his wife was so OCD.

(00:28:51.772):
And how very dare she expect him to buckle the car seat incorrectly.

(00:28:57.638):
And I just sort of laughed at this guy like telling on himself in this email

(00:29:02.080):
that was supposed to be like an attack on me and an attack on his wife.

(00:29:05.882):
But what it got me thinking about is this thing that just leaves me incandescent

(00:29:11.005):
with rage

(00:29:12.205):
with all of the self-help literature for anything related to parenting,

(00:29:16.868):
to household inequality,

(00:29:18.709):
to any of the ways that men just make women's lives shitty in the home.

(00:29:24.471):
And all of it.

(00:29:26.316):
Focuses, again, like on the women as an individual.

(00:29:29.038):
And we talked to her like, well, have you tried trying?

(00:29:32.901):
Have you tried communicating?

(00:29:34.888):
And we suggest to her that like, maybe she's a little bit OCD.

(00:29:38.285):
And maybe she needs to lower her standards.

(00:29:40.627):
And you know, there's always the advice of like, go on strike.

(00:29:43.970):
Just don't do it.

(00:29:45.131):
Just don't care.

(00:29:46.192):
And

(00:29:48.532):
I was thinking about that specific advice a lot while I was reading your book

(00:29:53.155):
because the thing that I loved so much about your book is

(00:29:56.856):
that your book illustrates why,

(00:29:58.537):
well, you can't go on strike because the work is vital.

(00:30:02.439):
Often it's literally a matter of life and death.

(00:30:05.121):
And even when it's not,

(00:30:06.962):
it connects directly to the well-being of a child,

(00:30:09.363):
of a community, of an entire society.

(00:30:12.465):
And so I love that about your book,

(00:30:14.405):
but I also think that we have this dynamic right now where women can't walk away

(00:30:20.887):
from these duties because there are really significant costs to doing so.

(00:30:25.408):
And as a result, we don't have to collectively acknowledge the importance of these duties.

(00:30:31.989):
We can just pretend,

(00:30:33.009):
like this dude who emailed me,

(00:30:34.330):
that it's just the OCD wives with their ridiculously high standards

(00:30:37.930):
about not killing children in car accidents.

(00:30:41.111):
Yeah.

(00:30:41.680):
Can you talk to me a little bit about that?

(00:30:44.140):
Yeah, gosh,

(00:30:45.241):
I think you're absolutely right that we have placed women in this position

(00:30:50.142):
where they have simultaneously nowhere to turn for support and in trying

(00:30:56.303):
to hold it together for their families and their communities and nowhere to hide

(00:31:00.123):
when everyone asks them to hold even more.

(00:31:03.084):
And it creates the situation where women are the ones who know that they Are going

(00:31:09.586):
to be judged for if their kid isn't buckled into the car seat correctly

(00:31:13.149):
and they post a picture on social media of their smiling kid in the back seat

(00:31:16.291):
when they, you know, are going to the grocery store.

(00:31:19.213):
They're the ones who are going to be vilified for making the choice,

(00:31:22.095):
you know, making the choice.

(00:31:23.596):
I put choice in quotes here to.

(00:31:26.619):
To not take the time to buckle their kid in correctly, for example.

(00:31:31.045):
And they know that their house will be the one who's judged if a neighbor stops by,

(00:31:35.472):
like a neighbor of mine did yesterday, to literally borrow a cup of sugar.

(00:31:39.177):
And if your house is a mess in the process.

(00:31:41.441):
They're the ones who are going to be judged, not their husbands, not their kids.

(00:31:45.687):
And so it's this sense that the more labor that we push onto women, it's rooted in judgment.

(00:31:52.958):
And it's also,

(00:31:55.081):
like you were saying,

(00:31:56.002):
It's this kind of deeply essential labor that women are providing,

(00:32:00.969):
which makes it incredibly hollow when people just say, oh,

(00:32:04.574):
just say no, or oh,

(00:32:05.796):
just go on strike, or oh,

(00:32:08.139):
she's just OCD about all of this,

(00:32:10.382):
that it's about And so that creates some OCD tendencies

(00:32:28.667):
And so it's hard not to internalize that as a sense of anxiety and a sense

(00:32:35.031):
of stress,

(00:32:36.452):
even as that anxiety and stress can take a toll on relationships,

(00:32:39.874):
can in some cases drive a wedge between women and their partners,

(00:32:43.937):
especially when men are unwilling to see that their wives,

(00:32:47.420):
what are often seen as high standards,

(00:32:49.841):
are a product of the The essentialness of the labor that women are expected

(00:32:55.715):
to provide and the kinds of social risks that come

(00:32:59.057):
with not fulfilling those expectations at the same time.

(00:33:03.239):
Yeah.

(00:33:04.340):
So my mother-in-law is kind of a typical woman of her generation who worked outside

(00:33:09.463):
of the home, but who also shouldered pretty much all of the household labor.

(00:33:14.506):
And she says that she once written on her tombstone that she was a manager with no employees.

(00:33:19.990):
And I'm like...

(00:33:21.608):
Like really sums it up.

(00:33:22.889):
And also that's, it's funny.

(00:33:25.251):
And then it's really dark and the humor.

(00:33:28.854):
No, I think that, oh gosh, that captured.

(00:33:30.396):
And it's,

(00:33:30.956):
there's,

(00:33:31.176):
you know,

(00:33:31.436):
I think we've done a better job in recent decades of attending to

(00:33:34.639):
the many different forms of labor that women are disproportionately responsible for.

(00:33:38.642):
And the often hidden forms of labor, the,

(00:33:40.684):
you know,

(00:33:41.725):
the emotional labor of taking care of your family's Emotional well-being,

(00:33:45.849):
being the one who you're,

(00:33:47.250):
I can't tell you how many women I've talked to who will talk

(00:33:49.573):
about how their kids will open up to them and tell them about all of

(00:33:52.576):
the frustrating things that happened at school or on the playground or with friends.

(00:33:56.681):
And then when dad comes home and says, like, you know, how was school today?

(00:33:59.084):
They're like, that was good.

(00:34:00.326):
And like the emotional piece of it or the cognitive and logistical piece of it,

(00:34:04.712):
keeping track of scheduling, keeping track of people's physical stuff.

(00:34:07.937):
This is something I struggle with a lot with my own family is like making sure

(00:34:11.842):
that we know where everybody's stuff is all of the time when it's needed.

(00:34:15.067):
That so much of that labor falls to women.

(00:34:17.770):
And it's the kind of stuff that is easy to ignore.

(00:34:20.453):
Because if there's someone in your household who is just taking care of all of that

(00:34:24.337):
for you, then it's easy to not even know that that labor is happening at all.

(00:34:29.023):
Whereas at the same time,

(00:34:30.264):
when women aren't able to do that work,

(00:34:32.847):
this was one of the things that came out of COVID.

(00:34:35.069):
Some of the sadder stories that came out

(00:34:36.712):
of my COVID research was hearing what happened when moms got not just kind of

(00:34:42.480):
a little bit sick, but extremely sick.

(00:34:44.523):
We talked to one family,

(00:34:45.865):
for example,

(00:34:46.326):
where mom is a nurse and developed a very A serious case of long COVID that led to

(00:34:51.752):
a series of strokes and other types of lasting health complications.

(00:34:55.653):
And her husband really had to step up to be a caregiver,

(00:34:59.235):
not only for her, but also for their three kids.

(00:35:02.296):
And it kind of radically transformed his understanding of the work

(00:35:06.677):
that his wife had been doing before the pandemic,

(00:35:10.299):
not only to have to take care of her in that way,

(00:35:12.160):
but just to have to suddenly be the only one who was able to manage All of

(00:35:16.741):
the day-to-day logistics of their household.

(00:35:18.982):
And so I think those kinds of moments are incredibly debilitating and difficult for families.

(00:35:24.343):
And we know that men in those situations sometimes don't step up

(00:35:27.224):
and sometimes do treat their wives terribly when their wives are unable to be

(00:35:33.166):
that caregiver anymore.

(00:35:34.346):
But I think at least for some men,

(00:35:36.147):
there were moments,

(00:35:37.547):
whether it was in the context of COVID or other kinds of life disruptions

(00:35:41.008):
that can make them suddenly aware of all that labor that's been taken for granted.

(00:35:47.040):
When women are sick or otherwise not able to step up, it's so sad.

(00:35:52.423):
And for some reason, I've been hearing lately from a lot of women with cancer.

(00:35:57.305):
It's been like the year of women with cancer contacting me.

(00:36:01.213):
And the stories are just awful.

(00:36:03.655):
You know,

(00:36:03.855):
there's that statistic that something like one in five men leave their wives

(00:36:07.197):
with cancer.

(00:36:07.957):
But what the statistic doesn't capture is the men who don't leave and

(00:36:12):
who just continue to make their partner's lives worse.

(00:36:15.322):
You know, I talk to so many women who are currently undergoing chemotherapy.

(00:36:21.013):
But are caring for their husbands.

(00:36:22.714):
Like their husband got a little cold and so she has to take care of the man baby

(00:36:26.838):
while she's like vomiting from chemo.

(00:36:29.580):
And it just really sometimes feels like there's no amount of labor from women

(00:36:35.364):
that we will ever say is too much.

(00:36:38.527):
And I think that's really...

(00:36:41.117):
Kind of the heart of your book is that we'll just forever pile it on and never say,

(00:36:47.719):
okay, this edition, that tips it over.

(00:36:50.320):
That's too much.

(00:36:52.021):
Yeah.

(00:36:53.401):
It reminds me of the Shel Silverstein book, The Giving Tree.

(00:36:57.603):
This notion that you just take from women until it's gone.

(00:37:00.564):
When there's nothing left to give in those kinds of moments.

(00:37:04.245):
And I think it's one of those books that I remember reading with my kids

(00:37:06.786):
when they were very little and being both like,

(00:37:11.574):
Angry and sad at the same time and seeing this kind of tree representation of

(00:37:16.576):
a mother who is put in a position to sacrifice endlessly and to be happy

(00:37:23.679):
about it all the way through.

(00:37:25.200):
And I think,

(00:37:25.640):
I don't know whether that was the intention in writing that book,

(00:37:27.761):
but certainly I think for me it captures so much of what we expect from women

(00:37:31.682):
in terms of A willingness to literally take of themselves to ensure the well-being

(00:37:39.438):
and the happiness of those around them,

(00:37:41.178):
whether it's their kids,

(00:37:42.179):
their husbands,

(00:37:42.699):
their partners, their parents, their communities, until there's nothing left.

(00:37:49.681):
Yeah, it's just really sad.

(00:37:52.202):
So perhaps to make things a little sadder even,

(00:37:54.963):
I think there's a lot of value in individual stories, and that's why I share them.

(00:38:01.645):
It's easy to hear statistics.

(00:38:04.543):
And to dismiss the statistics as things that happen to like other people

(00:38:08.306):
or uninteresting people or people who are not like me.

(00:38:12.289):
But you interviewed hundreds of women for your book.

(00:38:15.791):
And I think that really humanizes what the effects are of this phenomenon on women.

(00:38:21.175):
I just wonder if you might like to highlight some stories or some general themes

(00:38:26.258):
about what you saw and experienced talking to these women.

(00:38:31.092):
Absolutely.

(00:38:31.612):
I mean, I think what I try to show with these stories,

(00:38:33.934):
and yes,

(00:38:34.394):
you know,

(00:38:35.815):
I worked with a team of research assistants and interviewed,

(00:38:38.077):
you know,

(00:38:38.697):
hundreds of women,

(00:38:39.337):
like hundreds and hundreds of hours of interview data,

(00:38:42.540):
and we talked to their partners and their husbands in some cases too.

(00:38:45.081):
And really what I try to show with those stories is a way into understanding

(00:38:51.216):
The experience of motherhood in this country,

(00:38:54.238):
showing that idea that women have nowhere to turn for support and nowhere to hide in

(00:38:59.861):
the process too when others ask them to hold even more.

(00:39:02.822):
And also to push back against this notion that women could just

(00:39:05.844):
and should just make better choices.

(00:39:07.485):
In the book, for example, I tell the story of this one woman who I call Brooke.

(00:39:12.147):
And it's ironic because she actually never wanted to be a mom herself.

(00:39:16.150):
She'd grown up in a very difficult and volatile home.

(00:39:21.207):
In part because of what she saw from her own parents,

(00:39:23.290):
you know, she didn't want to bring kids into the world herself.

(00:39:25.873):
And yet, like a lot of young women, she ended up becoming pregnant unexpectedly in college.

(00:39:31.380):
And at the time,

(00:39:32.641):
she and her boyfriend,

(00:39:33.422):
you know,

(00:39:33.623):
thought about getting an abortion,

(00:39:35.325):
but she'd grown up in a very conservative evangelical Christian white family

(00:39:39.670):
and community.

(00:39:40.890):
And she was depending on her parents to help her pay for college.

(00:39:43.552):
And when her mom found out that she was pregnant, she persuaded her to not get an abortion.

(00:39:49.777):
Her mom kind of persuaded her, you know, I'll help you take care of the baby.

(00:39:52.098):
We can make this work.

(00:39:53.619):
And yet what they figured out once Brooke's son Carter was born,

(00:39:57.122):
that they couldn't afford both college and childcare.

(00:40:00.364):
And so Brooke And this led to lots of complications,

(00:40:04.351):
her book, and she also didn't trust her parents to care for her son.

(00:40:08.657):
And so that meant that she couldn't take night classes,

(00:40:10.780):
for example, and trust her parents to watch her son for her.

(00:40:14.965):
And this led to a lot of conflict.

(00:40:16.367):
And Brooke ended up Actually moving with her son into a shelter,

(00:40:21.406):
into essentially a homeless shelter,

(00:40:22.888):
because that was the only place that she could afford to go.

(00:40:26.994):
And because that was what the social workers told her was the best chance

(00:40:30.940):
that she had to be able to get herself And so she essentially had to become homeless

(00:40:34.285):
to access the little bit of social support that our safety net does provide.

(00:40:47.684):
She realized that the social safety net that we do have is deeply punitive in

(00:40:52.565):
the sense that it requires women in order to receive welfare.

(00:40:56.527):
And she was living in Indiana where the most she could qualify for as a single mom

(00:41:00.768):
with one child was only about like $260 a month in support.

(00:41:05.109):
And yet to get that money, she had to find paid work.

(00:41:08.110):
And ironically,

(00:41:09.410):
the first full-time paid job she was able to find was at a childcare center

(00:41:14.511):
and caring for other people's kids instead.

(00:41:16.491):
A low-paying job where even when she was promoted to assistant director of

(00:41:20.632):
the center a few years later, she was still only making $25,000 a year.

(00:41:24.933):
And she desperately wanted to go back to school.

(00:41:27.714):
She had this dream of becoming a nurse that that might be the way to have a level

(00:41:31.734):
of financial stability for herself and for her son.

(00:41:34.675):
But she still couldn't figure it out.

(00:41:35.837):
She couldn't find a way to be able to go back to school and have care for her son

(00:41:40.624):
and still bring in enough money to keep a roof over their heads.

(00:41:43.408):
And this actually ended up leading her.

(00:41:46.373):
She relied very heavily when her son was young on Crisis pregnancy centers,

(00:41:50.798):
you know,

(00:41:51.058):
which are often run by conservative churches that,

(00:41:55.020):
you know, yes, they provide things like diapers and wipes.

(00:41:57.461):
And for those who aren't aware,

(00:41:58.582):
you can't use food stamps to buy diapers and wipes,

(00:42:01.023):
even though these are essential childhood supplies.

(00:42:03.844):
And so she turned to these crisis pregnancy centers for support

(00:42:06.506):
with getting necessary supplies for her son and in

(00:42:09.407):
the process ended up getting more involved in the church herself and met a man

(00:42:13.589):
who she ended up moving in with very quickly because it would provide

(00:42:17.051):
a little bit more security and stability.

(00:42:19.353):
And in the process, got pregnant again.

(00:42:20.895):
And he ended up persuading her.

(00:42:22.717):
At first she thought,

(00:42:23.318):
okay, maybe this will give me the life stability that I need to go back to school.

(00:42:27.324):
But once she got pregnant again,

(00:42:28.646):
he ended up persuading her to drop out of the workforce and to become

(00:42:31.410):
a stay-at-home mom full-time,

(00:42:33.152):
even though he's not She's not making much more than she was.

(00:42:35.154):
He works in auto repair and he makes around $25,000 a year himself.

(00:42:39.617):
And so now there's four of them trying to get by on that income.

(00:42:43.120):
And she feels trapped in many ways,

(00:42:44.541):
but she also doesn't necessarily feel like she hasn't had their choices.

(00:42:48.304):
And I think her story really illustrates how this kind of DIY society model

(00:42:55.089):
that we live in,

(00:42:55.869):
our lack of investment in the social safety net really pushes women into a system

(00:43:01.213):
where you have to settle for Less than ideal jobs and or less than ideal partners,

(00:43:06.877):
because that is the only opportunity for security,

(00:43:09.778):
especially once you are caring for a young child.

(00:43:14.600):
And I talk about it in the book as sort of motherhood in the absence of

(00:43:19.222):
a strong social safety net can very easily become this kind of trap.

(00:43:23.624):
And that I think Brooke's story illustrates in a really kind of visceral and often painful way.

(00:43:30.529):
You know,

(00:43:30.749):
the punitive nature of the social safety net is something

(00:43:33.912):
that I think is really important to talk about

(00:43:35.473):
because there is this assumption baked in to

(00:43:39.917):
the very hole-filled safety net we do have that anybody who needs to be caught by

(00:43:45.741):
that net is stupid, incompetent, and badly behaved.

(00:43:51.226):
I saw this myself.

(00:43:52.126):
So my mom was a marriage and family therapist and she said,

(00:43:57.153):
Ended up taking in a child who had aged out of the foster care system

(00:44:01.095):
when he was 18.

(00:44:02.796):
And he moved in with us and, you know, essentially became her child.

(00:44:06.339):
And her goal was to kind of like help him navigate the system

(00:44:09.501):
and help him make his way into adulthood and to use the resources

(00:44:13.283):
that were available to him.

(00:44:14.504):
And she did do that.

(00:44:18.546):
But the way the people who were supposed to be helping him treated him was Was appalling.

(00:44:25.304):
You know, they would call the house and you could just tell they were ready to fight.

(00:44:30.469):
He was just treated like he was dumb and like he was someone who didn't matter.

(00:44:34.572):
And this was just a child who had aged out of foster care.

(00:44:38.873):
And I've actually had a really similar experience lately that's just totally weird.

(00:44:45.762):
Someone whose child is getting disability services...

(00:44:50.862):
Somehow ended up giving a number similar to my number to the social worker who's overseeing it.

(00:44:56.224):
So sometimes the social worker misdials the number and calls me instead.

(00:45:00.746):
And every time I answer the phone, she is so mean.

(00:45:05.708):
She is so ready to get aggressive with this mother to the point that like

(00:45:10.530):
when I'm like, no, no, you called the wrong number again.

(00:45:12.891):
You got to call the 4-6 number, not the 4-5 number.

(00:45:17.153):
She's already accusing me of things and yelling at me.

(00:45:20.295):
And I'm just like,

(00:45:21.376):
I don't even know you,

(00:45:22.577):
but your assumption that the person on the other side of this phone is going to be

(00:45:26.740):
a bad person runs so deep that you can't even tell you're talking to

(00:45:31.323):
the wrong person.

(00:45:32.789):
It's bizarre.

(00:45:35.125):
Yeah.

(00:45:35.505):
Oh, gosh, that hostility.

(00:45:36.726):
And I think people are often...

(00:45:40.460):
Your point about this assumption that people who rely on the social safety net or

(00:45:44.326):
who need more support are just have made bad choices or they're just dumb

(00:45:47.891):
or whatever,

(00:45:48.733):
you know,

(00:45:48.973):
I think it's It carries over often in even things like liberal politics,

(00:45:54.026):
where there's this assumption that,

(00:45:55.387):
you know,

(00:45:56.227):
low income people,

(00:45:57.147):
working class people who might vote for a Donald Trump,

(00:46:00.249):
for example,

(00:46:00.769):
or support other politicians who have taken steps to dismantle

(00:46:03.970):
the social safety net,

(00:46:05.150):
that there's people who are on Medicaid or on welfare who are,

(00:46:08.111):
you know,

(00:46:08.952):
voting for conservative politicians who would take away even more support

(00:46:13.213):
from people in the US,

(00:46:14.654):
that it feels like they're making these kind of And yet I think it speaks to

(00:46:24.434):
the deep frustration that comes from,

(00:46:26.054):
in many cases,

(00:46:26.775):
having to rely on these kinds of social systems and believing that they can't trust

(00:46:31.436):
the government,

(00:46:31.996):
believing that the government is out to get them,

(00:46:33.957):
believing You know,

(00:46:35.196):
this this notion that and it's not that the government isn't capable

(00:46:39.157):
of providing more solid,

(00:46:41.838):
less punitive, more human and dignified forms of social support.

(00:46:45.879):
We know from other countries example that that is entirely possible.

(00:46:49.640):
But it's instead,

(00:46:50.360):
you know,

(00:46:50.620):
and so it gets conflated,

(00:46:51.720):
this notion that it must just be that the government is not trustworthy.

(00:46:54.941):
And so the answer must there be less government instead of a less punitive

(00:46:59.382):
and more humane kind of government instead.

(00:47:02.043):
And I think it's also very And to your point,

(00:47:04.043):
it's very easy for those of us who haven't had to encounter these kinds of systems

(00:47:08.364):
to assume that they're always helping people and always have people's best interests

(00:47:14.725):
at heart or that the level of support that they're providing is adequate.

(00:47:17.946):
And yet,

(00:47:18.946):
even some of the more privileged women that I've talked

(00:47:22.187):
to have sometimes stumbled up against these kinds of systems.

(00:47:25.068):
I talked to one mom, for example, I call her Lillian.

(00:47:28.122):
She has a master's degree.

(00:47:29.687):
She was working as a marriage and family therapist through the Department

(00:47:32.597):
of Children's Services.

(00:47:34.407):
And yet she realized that she didn't have any access to paid maternity leave through her job.

(00:47:39.768):
And so she needed to take additional time off

(00:47:41.948):
because she'd had some health complications following the birth of her son.

(00:47:45.389):
And her husband is an immigrant and he was struggling to find full-time paid work.

(00:47:48.950):
And so she was their primary earner for the household.

(00:47:53.230):
And she realized that she actually qualified for Medicaid during those months

(00:47:56.571):
when she wasn't being paid because she had to take some extra time off from work.

(00:48:02.532):
And her experiences interacting with the Medicaid office,

(00:48:05.553):
interacting with the social service agencies that she was in some ways part of,

(00:48:09.734):
you know,

(00:48:10.094):
was deeply eye-opening for her in terms of understanding,

(00:48:13.175):
you know,

(00:48:13.875):
how many hoops people are expected to jump through,

(00:48:16.515):
how difficult it is to get access to this kind of support,

(00:48:19.316):
even if you qualify,

(00:48:20.896):
and how meager that support is that we actually provide to people who can jump

(00:48:25.817):
through all of those hoops and get access to support in the U.S.

(00:48:30.252):
Yeah, yeah.

(00:48:31.333):
So the second half of your book kind of shifts toward both why we haven't changed things.

(00:48:38.376):
And I think you've argued that pretty clearly of it benefits capitalism,

(00:48:42.158):
it benefits the wealthy,

(00:48:43.479):
it benefits the most privileged to not provide things to people in need and

(00:48:47.901):
to not really treat women like people who matter.

(00:48:50.223):
And I know this is a question with a big answer and not a simple answer,

(00:48:56.626):
but I don't like to leave people with hopelessness.

(00:49:00.522):
What do we do?

(00:49:01.682):
Like, really, please tell me.

(00:49:03.503):
Because I think so many of us feel so deeply overwhelmed by how much things need to change.

(00:49:10.964):
But at the same time,

(00:49:11.664):
it does feel like maybe we're on the precipice of, like, meaningful change.

(00:49:16.465):
So what do we do?

(00:49:18.803):
Yeah, I think there's two things we can do, all of us, in our day-to-day lives.

(00:49:22.686):
I think the first thing we can do is...

(00:49:28.865):
It's very easy for all of us to fall into the kind of myth of meritocracy thinking,

(00:49:33.896):
the kind of,

(00:49:34.317):
you know,

(00:49:34.637):
myth of the super mom thinking,

(00:49:35.997):
even the kind of gendered myths,

(00:49:37.357):
even the sort of what I talk about in the book is the myth of Mars and Venus

(00:49:40.278):
to just assume that, you know, women are better at caregiving.

(00:49:42.919):
And so, you know,

(00:49:43.659):
it makes sense that they do this kind of work than men,

(00:49:46.600):
despite all the evidence to the contrary.

(00:49:49.061):
And, you know,

(00:49:49.761):
I think,

(00:49:50.061):
you know,

(00:49:50.281):
pushing back when we catch ourselves in those moments,

(00:49:53.082):
Gaslighting ourselves,

(00:49:54.022):
un-gaslighting others around us when we hear people engaged in that kind

(00:49:58.144):
of thinking.

(00:49:58.744):
I think those can be the start of conversations that can help us to see

(00:50:02.666):
when we're being diluted and divided.

(00:50:05.087):
And to that point of division,

(00:50:06.487):
I think the other thing that we can start to do is to form what I talk about in

(00:50:09.969):
the book is, you know, even small unions of care.

(00:50:13.891):
Because,

(00:50:14.351):
you know,

(00:50:14.631):
in the absence of a social safety net,

(00:50:16.372):
you know, yes,

(00:50:16.912):
we need to fight for better policies,

(00:50:19.634):
but we can't do that if we're not taking care of people in the short term.

(00:50:22.975):
And so it can sound counterintuitive,

(00:50:24.476):
like do more care in the short term to get to a place where we can have more care,

(00:50:28.598):
more support and taking care.

(00:50:30.118):
But what I argue is that We can only fight for that stronger social safety net,

(00:50:35.445):
fight for those better policies if we're in a place where we have as many people

(00:50:40.753):
on strong footing as possible.

(00:50:42.095):
And so this looks like community care.

(00:50:44.538):
This looks like community aid.

(00:50:50.906):
I think we've seen hopeful examples of this in places like Minnesota in the recent,

(00:50:56.152):
in the wake of things like ice attacks and infiltration of cities in Minneapolis,

(00:51:02.879):
for example.

(00:51:04.060):
Where we've seen communities coming together to take care of each other, to support each other.

(00:51:08.585):
And it's when people can feel secure and supported and seen by their neighbors,

(00:51:13.150):
by even people that they might not know personally,

(00:51:15.573):
but just trust and know that their neighbors have their backs.

(00:51:18.696):
That's the kind of situation that we need to be in to be able to And so I think these are.

(00:51:44.865):
Places where we can start small.

(00:51:46.885):
It's easy to kind of set our hopes on the big massive social change first and

(00:51:51.806):
then get discouraged when that doesn't happen right away.

(00:51:54.227):
But there are so many things that we can do locally in supporting and being part

(00:51:58.327):
of our communities and pushing back against the kinds of rhetoric and myths

(00:52:02.448):
that keep us insulated and focused only on ourselves and our own families as opposed

(00:52:07.009):
to thinking about broader networks of care.

(00:52:10.130):
You know,

(00:52:10.690):
I love that you talk about kind of

(00:52:13.613):
To do less labor,

(00:52:14.693):
we in some ways have to do more labor for a while.

(00:52:17.034):
I think that's true, and I really want to highlight that.

(00:52:22.276):
So I'll tell you from my own experience,

(00:52:24.557):
I'm kind of like an introverted,

(00:52:26.978):
nerdy intellectual who finds large groups very overwhelming.

(00:52:31.259):
But about 10 years ago, I decided, okay, I'm just going to get good at building community.

(00:52:36.500):
Like I'm going to read about how to build community and I'm going

(00:52:39.122):
to like figure out how to connect with other people and I'm going to do it.

(00:52:42.003):
So like I've been trying to do that for like the last 10 years

(00:52:45.245):
and I've gotten really good at it.

(00:52:46.926):
And it's a lot of work,

(00:52:48.727):
you know,

(00:52:49.147):
like I have to be the one to call and make plans and I have to be the one to check

(00:52:54.110):
in on people who may not necessarily always check in on me because,

(00:52:57.832):
you know, they're overwhelmed and maybe don't have the skills and all of that.

(00:53:01.176):
But what I have found is that it is work that has really paid off

(00:53:05.879):
because I now have multiple big communities of activists that I can draw upon.

(00:53:11.142):
I have multiple networks of people that I can network with and it's made

(00:53:16.086):
a difference for me and it's made a difference for them.

(00:53:18.367):
So now people ask me about community building and they're like,

(00:53:22.730):
well, what do I do if I'm the one who always has to call people to make plans?

(00:53:26.692):
And my answer is, well, keep being the one to call people to make plans.

(00:53:31.707):
You just got to kind of do it.

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And I think that we all have to ask ourselves, like,

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what's the kind of like social,

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cognitive,

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emotional labor that I can do that will actually pay off in something meaningful?

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And just do as much of that as you can.

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It's not a very satisfactory answer, but I think it is the answer.

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Yeah.

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And I think, you know, as moms, we can also train the next generation to do that, too.

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And certainly involve our partners and encourage them to do that for

(00:53:57.974):
the communities around them, too.

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I think about how I moved recently from Indiana to Wisconsin,

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and my husband, when we lived in Indiana, He's a community builder.

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He does this kind of stuff in part because he's someone who loves friendships

(00:54:12.629):
and social interaction.

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And so he had built a whole men's rec hockey league.

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And he was running it and doing all of the logistics and getting everybody involved.

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And the thing fell apart when we moved because nobody else stepped up to take it on.

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And that was,

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I think,

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an example of the fact that men can do this labor too,

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if they're willing to step up and do it.

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And that we can teach our children,

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our boys,

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our girls,

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our kids of every gender,

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to be able to see that there is value in this kind of work and that they can better.

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And so I think this is a place where women certainly can step up and do this.

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We can encourage our men around us to do so.

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Even though there's risks,

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sometimes I worry too much about telling men to do more because it often turns

(00:54:58.649):
into telling women to nag more essentially, and that can come with risks.

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But we certainly can help to show our kids the value in building community

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and help them to find spaces where they can build that community too.

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Yeah, I think that's it.

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You know, and we just try to do whatever we can to make the little world around us better.

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And motherhood is activism.

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And it's really powerful, meaningful activism that matters.

(00:55:25.220):
Yeah, very much so.

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And it's the kind of, especially when we do it together in community with others.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

(00:55:31.283):
Jess, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.

(00:55:33.844):
This has been, it's been wonderful to talk to you.

(00:55:36.485):
And I just,

(00:55:37.486):
I hope everyone will go out and buy Jess's book because it's really thoughtful

(00:55:43.069):
and helpful and inspiring.

(00:55:44.729):
And it tells the truth, which I feel like a lot of books about these subjects don't always do.

(00:55:51.953):
Thank you so much, Zawn.

(00:55:52.993):
This is, oh gosh, been a really cathartic conversation.

(00:55:56.595):
And thank you also to your listeners for all of the powerful stories that they share.

(00:56:00.337):
They really matter.

(00:56:01.473):
Well, it's been wonderful having you.

(00:56:03.401):
And listeners, I will be back with you in two weeks.