No One is Coming to Save Us

The tour makes a virtual stop in Birmingham, where host Gloria Riviera learns how local advocates successfully lobbied lawmakers to make a historic investment in funding for both voluntary pre-k as well as initiatives that bolster the quality of early childhood education. This week we meet Catrice Pruitt, the director of programs at Childcare Resources, and Allison Muhlendorf, the executive direct...

The tour stops in our nation's capital to speak with local advocates about lessons learned from their successful, years-long campaign to pass universal pre-k in D.C.; how cities can better retain early childhood educators; and how to garner lawmaker support for improving child care. We meet panelists Marica Cox Mitchell, vice president of early childhood at the Bainum Family Foundation; Beatriz “B...

This week Gloria Riviera is live at KDOL-TV with a trio of women who are fighting against racial inequities facing families in Oakland. They shine a light on how the struggle for racial justice and access to early childhood development go hand-in-hand. We meet panelists Clarissa Doutherd, executive director of Parent Voices Oakland; LaWanda Wesley, director of government relations of early learnin...

On the first stop of the national tour, host Gloria Riviera is live in Tulsa to speak with members of a coalition that is supporting both families and childhood educators while working to stamp out Oklahoma’s expansive child care desert. We meet panelists Cindy Decker, executive director of Tulsa Educare, an early childcare provider in Tulsa; Jackie Evans, owner of Aunt Jackie’s Family Childcare H...

We’re back for Season 3, and this year, host Gloria Riviera is setting out across the U.S. to meet the people who are fixing the child care crisis. A lot has happened since Season 2, and in this episode, Latoya Gayle from Neighborhood Villages updates us about what we’ve been missing, including President Biden’s recent executive order on child care and what it  means for you. Plus, Gloria and Lato...

America’s child care system is broken and still, more than three years after the pandemic began, No One Is Coming To Save Us. That’s why Gloria Riviera is setting out this season to tour the country and meet the people who are doing the work to fix things themselves. With live and virtual events recorded in cities across America, find out how we’re going to come together and make things better. Se...

Join veteran reporter Gloria Riviera as she sets out across America to find out who’s working on fixing the country’s broken child care system. See the show live in Detroit, Washington, D.C., Tulsa, and more. Find all the details and learn how to get free tickets HERE. And if you can’t make it, No One Is Coming to Save Us returns with new episodes in June. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy i...

“The state of child care in America right now is hopeful.” While affordable, accessible, high-quality child care remains out of reach for millions of families across the country, Lauren Kennedy and Sarah Muncey, founders and co-presidents of Neighborhood Villages, see sparks of positive change in the year ahead. They talk Gloria through some of the big child care wins from the past year, explain w...

What happens when a child care center supports not only its children, but its staff, its families, and its community, too? Gloria finds out from Jamal Berry, the newly-appointed President and CEO of Educare DC, an early learning program that provides free, high-quality child care to low-income families. Jamal tells Gloria how they’re closing the achievement gap using a holistic, two-generation app...

Hundreds of thousands of young people in this country live in poverty or are homeless. Many thousands more face uncertain futures, and even abuse, while navigating (or languishing in) the foster care system. In A Place Called Home, author and child welfare advocate David Ambroz chronicles his life growing up homeless in New York City. He tells Gloria about his experience in foster care, the work h...

How do you find a job when you have no child care? How do you find an apartment with no job? How do you pull off Christmas when you’re stressed about making next month’s rent? Sa’iyda Shabazz has done it all. The writer and mother joins Gloria to tell her about how she made it all work – balancing single motherhood, unemployment, housing insecurity, and a lack of child care – in a new city far awa...

Gloria has a heart-to-heart conversation with Waukecha Wilkerson, a student parent advocate and single mom of three, about how her years-long struggle with child care ultimately put her on the path to earning her college degree. Waukecha talks about growing up as a gifted child in Compton, falling in with the wrong crowd, and getting pregnant in her early 20s. Her journey takes her through toxic r...

One in four people who’ve had an abortion identify as Catholic. That surprised Gloria, as most Catholic leaders are ardently against the procedure. In this episode, Gloria talks with Jamie Manson, the president of Catholics for Choice, and Jeanné Lewis, interim CEO at Faith in Public Life Action, about how abortion rights are viewed across different faiths. They also talk about what the recent mid...

Gloria kicks off the show by unpacking the numerous abortion rights and child care wins coming out of the midterm elections. Then, she chats with Stephanie Curenton, associate professor at Boston University and the director of their Center for the Ecology of Early Childhood Development. Stephanie talks about her research on the social, cognitive, and language development of low-income and minority...

Gloria gets a lesson on the nationwide effort to censor classroom discussions on racism and inequality from Morgan Craven and Ben Hodge. First, Morgan, the director of Policy, Advocacy, and Community Engagement with the Intercultural Development Research Association, debunks some of the misinformation about what is being taught in our public schools. Then, Ben, a teacher at Central York High Schoo...

Gloria sits down with NYC Council Member Julie Menin to learn how New York became the first city in the United States to pass universal child care. Julie talks about running a campaign centered on child care, how she convinced her colleagues to vote for this bill, and what will happen now that it’s passed. Plus, they break down what each bill in her package will do, including creating a child care...

Gloria calls up Lynette Fraga, CEO of Child Care Aware of America, to unpack the many reasons why America’s child care crisis has only gotten worse over the past year, from inflation to the workforce crisis. Lynette explains why the military’s child care system, famous for its high quality and accessibility, is also struggling right now, with more than 11,000 children under 5 in need of a child ca...

Gloria gets a lesson from journalist Katherine Goldstein about why she no longer uses the term “working mother.” Katherine, who is also the founder of The Double Shift newsletter, podcast, and community, explains why the phrase devalues caregiving, and how it creates an artificial barrier between mothers that prevents them from addressing their shared struggles and concerns. Then, Katherine makes...

The pandemic has brought the fault lines and inequities in our social sectors into sharp focus, perhaps most glaringly child care. The economic and social impacts of our failure to publicly invest in child care have become untenable not only for parents, but also for early education providers and teachers. In our first-ever live episode, Gloria moderates a panel of policy experts, child care advoc...

Many of us were left with far more questions than answers when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade this summer. A campaign called Day Without Us, happening on September 30th, is an opportunity to learn more about the fight for reproductive justice in America. Gloria and Leslie Mac, one of the organizers of this national teach-in, discuss how you can participate in Day Without Us, how to conti...

Gloria dives into the science of parenting with Chelsea Conaboy, author of Mother Brain: How Neuroscience is Rewriting the Story of Parenthood. They discuss how becoming a parent physically changes your brain, what the science says about the highly-debated “maternal instinct,” and how she hopes these new findings can get more people in this country to value caregivers. Plus, what we know about the...

Gloria learns what venture philanthropists are doing to fix early childhood education in this country with David Merage and Sue Renner from the David and Laura Merage Foundation. They discuss the wins they’ve had in their home state of Colorado, what they’ve been able to expand across the United States, and how they’re working to bring business leaders into the fold to be a voice for the voiceless...

Gloria talks all things care with Ai-jen Poo, President of the National Domestic Workers Alliance. Ai-jen has been advocating for care workers for over twenty years and outlines why caregivers are both undervalued and undercompensated, how the pandemic adversely affected millions of domestic workers, and the urgent need for a national Domestic Workers Bill of Rights. Plus, Gloria and Ai-jen poigna...

Gloria gets an update on the state of child care in this country from Lauren Kennedy and Sarah Muncey, the co-founders of Neighborhood Villages. First, Lauren provides an overview of what’s happening on the legislative front, and tells us what we ended up with in the Inflation Reduction Act. Then, Sarah lays out the realities on the ground, where she says the child care crisis is worse than it’s e...

Listen again as Gloria breaks down how we’re all breaking down: parents, teachers, and child care providers. And Kristen Bell joins to “call it like it is” on the cost of child care. Parents are languishing on waitlists or drowning in tuition bills. Teachers are underpaid. And providers can barely afford to keep the lights on. “We set families up to struggle. We put every barrier we can in their w...