Our Mothers Ourselves

Nancy Adler was a renowned health psychologist who documented the powerful role that education, income and self-perceived social status play in a person's health and longevity. She was that rare person who was highly accomplished in her professional life but never lost touch with what mattered most to her: her family. As a mother, she was such a consistent and steady presence to her two daugh...

A companion interview to Season 3 of Lost Women of Science , this episode is about the trailblazing mechanical engineer Yvonne Young "Y.Y." Clark.  Katie talks with Y.Y,'s daughter, Carol Lawson, about what it was like to be the daughter of such a brilliant -- and pragmatic -- woman. YY has been nicknamed “The First Lady of Engineering,” because of her groundbreaking achievements as...

Two years ago, to mark Father’s Day, I sat in the closet I’m sitting in now (which you can see only in your mind’s eye), and had an extraordinary conversation with Dr. Talmadge E. King, Jr., a world-renowned lung specialist who is dean of the Medical School at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. King and I talked about his father, Talmadge King Senior, who was born in 1922 in the segr...

Several years ago, Julie Metz found something in the back of a drawer among her mother's slips and perfumes: a small book filled with handwritten notes to her mother, who was then called Eva, later Eve. The discovery started Julie on a journey to find out much more about her mother's history. Her book, "Eva and Eve," tells the story of that journey.  It describes how her mother...

Mary Trageser is about to celebrate her 100th birthday this April, but she doesn't want any fuss about it. She's had a very adventurous life, growing up as a child of the Great Depression, surviving bombings in London during World War II, then working for the UN in Paris after the war. But she doesn't want any fuss about all that, either. Mary now has four kids, seven grandchildren,...

Some women take up crafting or knitting or volunteering in their later years. For Gladys Barry, also known as Gigi, there was a different hobby: Poker. Gigi was born in Brooklyn and worked as a math teacher in elementary school. She learned to play poker from some of her friends, and realized she had a knack for it. So she began to play in low stakes tournaments, and kept getting better and better...

Dorothy Nayer was born in Altoona, Pennsylvania and into her twenties, life bumped along. She went to nursing school, got married, and had two daughters. Then, when her daughters were still young children, Dorothy was in a horrible accident while the family was vacationing on Cape Cod. She was planning to light a hot water heater and it exploded, leaving her with horrible third degree burns. Dorot...

Joy Liasson was born in Pittsburgh in 1926, a child of the Depression.  She was an aspiring writer who  met her husband when he accidentally burned a hole in one of the two dresses she owned. They went on to have children, including a daughter who became a well known voice in America's political news coverage. That is my guest, Mara Liasson, national political correspondent for NPR.  Joy didn...

When Ginny Hughes's oldest daughter, Mallory, was born, she  knew something was terribly wrong. Ginny started talking to doctors, they told her she was having "the mommy worry syndrome."  But Ginny was a nurse and knew to trust her instincts. Eventually Ginny took Mallory to see Dr. Celia Ores, a pediatrician in New York. All Dr. Ores had to do was kiss Mallory and taste her salty s...

I've known Lisa Van Dusen for nearly 40 years, and I've always loved the way Lisa talks about her mother, Barbara: with unalloyed love and respect. Barbara  is truly the mother "jackpot," as Lisa likes to put it. She is positive, kind, and generous, and gave her three daughters an idyllic childhood in many ways.  Now 93 and still going strong, she grew rugged and hardy during h...

Valerie Jarrett  needs very little introduction. She's been a political force since the 1980s, when she worked first for Chicago Mayor Harold Washington, then for his successor, Richard Daley. In 1991, she hired a young woman named Michelle Robinson —and thus was born a long friendship and working relationship with the Obamas. Jarrett was a senior White House advisor and is now president of t...

Benter Akoth was born and lives in Kenya, where education is often seen as an opportunity that is given only to boys. But Benter has wanted to change that ever since she was told in primary school that girls could also be things like doctors, engineers, and architects, if they got educated. Although her own education was cut short, she passed on her conviction that girls should be educated too to...

Rita Kelly Mullan worked as a nurse, founded the nonprofit The Irish National Caucus , successfully lobbied the U.S. government to recognize human rights issues in Northern Ireland, received the Eleanor Roosevelt Award for Human Rights, was named one of the Top 100 Peacemakers by Irish America Magazine, and testified multiple times before Congress. But she was  described as a ‘Belfast housewife’ i...

In her late 30s Molly Luther went back to school to become a composer. It was the 1950s and going back to school at her age was unusual as was her career choice. But she was passionate and she gambled it all — her marriage, money from her mother — to pursue her dream. And her story is like that of many people, she started off well, but then things took a downward turn and never came back up. After...

Author and journalist Sara Davidson is an award-winning storyteller, and she says she learned that skill from her mother Alice. Every night before bed, Alice would tell Sara and her sister the next installment in a serial story about a miniature girl named P Winky Smith who was so small she could fit in your pocket.  But that doesn’t mean their relationship was idyllic by any stretch. For Sara, th...

There is so much fascination around cults and extreme religions in popular culture, with movies like Midsommar and series like Wild Wild Country . We seem to have an endless appetite for stories about how people find themselves in thrall to a group and its ideas -- as well as its leader . But what if you were born into the inner sanctum of such a group?  That was the case for Erin Prophet. Her mot...

We've heard from some of you that having Mother Mine episodes mixed in with Our Mothers Ourselves episodes is getting confusing. So we've decided to switch Mother Mine over to it's own podcast feed. To keep listening to it, just search for Mother Mine in your favorite podcast app and hit subscribe. You'll then have access to all the old episodes and the new ones as they come ou...

Although we usually celebrate mothers here on Our Mothers Ourselves, once a year for Fathers' Day we celebrate a father. This year Katie Semro, from the Mother Mine mini-series, fills in for Katie Hafner as host, and talks with Isabella Di Pietro about her father Luca who owns and runs the Tarallucci e Vino restaurants in NYC. Katie talks with Isabella about how the family rose to the challen...

Divorce is hard on anyone, and sometimes the children of divorce become pawns in their parents' game of revenge. But what happens when that goes too far? It’s known as ‘parental alienation.' One parent uses tactics to make the children hate or fear the other parent so much that they begin to reject them as a parent altogether. That’s what happened to Olivia  (her name has been changed to...

This week, Katie Semro, from the Mother Mine mini-series, fills in for Katie Hafner as host. Katie interviews her childhood best friend Brittany Zaccagnini about her mother Linda Steed Heidenreich’s 54 years of life lived fully. Linda was a vivacious woman who made everyone she met feel special. She loved her family, and also worked hard in a variety of careers. And yet, as Brittany tells Katie, h...

Happy Mother's Day!  Sending some extra love today to all the extraordinary mothers out there! And speaking of extraordinary mothers.... This week, Katie interviews her sisters-in law, Lori Wolfson and Andrea Wachter, about  their mother, Bernice Wachter.  Bernice raised her kids in quintessential “Mama Bear" mode, striking the perfect balance between giving guidance and granting indepen...

Sarah Kuhn is a busy person. She's the founder of Juna, a community and app for moms and moms-to-be; she hosts the The Juna Women Podcast ; and she's a mom herself -- three times over.  In this episode, Sarah talks with Katie about her own mother, Lorraine Fixler, who was born in the UK and emigrated to the United States as a child.  Lorraine met Sarah’s dad while working in his law prac...

Sonia Levitin was born to a Jewish family in Berlin in 1934, just as Germany was entering its darkest period in history. With Hitler tightening his grip on the country, Sonia's mother, Helene Goldstein Wolff, plotted their escape.  In 1938, Helene fled with her children first to Switzerland, then America. Helene instilled in her daughters a sense of dignity and the courage to persevere—lesson...

Every month is women's history month at Our Mothers Ourselves. Still, we wanted to mark the occasion by talking to a young woman who has plans to make a big mark on history.  This week, Katie speaks with Abby Harrison, also known as Astronaut Abby . Abby has wanted to be an astronaut since she was a little girl, and the 23-year-old Harvard research assistant wants to be the first person to wa...

This week, Katie speaks with MIT social scientist Sherry Turkle about her charismatic and vibrant mother, Harriet.  Born and raised in Brooklyn, Harriet, a spirited woman, longed for a husband and family. Her first marriage, however, did not work out. Her in-laws did not approve of her non-Kosher lifestyle and her husband had started performing Skinnerian-like experiments on their infant daughter...