The Mother Of It All

Sarah and Miranda are joined by their moms, Bev and Linda, to talk about modern motherhood, what has and hasn’t changed in a generation, “Folly Fridays,” and whether mothers ever truly get their flowers. Links: * Terry Brazelton * Lydia Kiesling’s Golden Stat e This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit motherofitall.substa...

Sarah and Miranda talk to Lucy Jones, author of the book Matrescence , out May 7th, about how becoming a mother is truly a biopsychosocial evolution, how motherhood in nature is more often about chaos and violence than dyads and instincts, Kafka’s Metamorphosis , and our favorite Bluey episodes. Links: * Order Lucy’s book, Matrescence * Alexandra Sacks’ The Birth of a Mother in the NY TImes * The...

A little one-on-one time with Sarah and Miranda! A fun chit-chatty check-in about vasectomies, the third kid question, the weird pressure of turning 40, why Sarah "doesn't get" Hawaii, mole moms, hopping on the 'crone train, and calendar reminders gone wild. Plus, a big announcement! How To Catch A Mole by Marc Hamer Poser by Claire Dederer Krtek The Mole , Clementine , Psychic S...

Columnist and sociologist Kathryn Jezer-Morton returns to give the inside scoop on her recent profile of Dr. Becky. Sarah, Miranda and KJM dive deep into what’s great (and maybe no so great) about the advice Dr. Becky doles out, and Kathryn explains what ultimately surprised her most about spending time with Dr. Becky and the “Good Inside” parent community.  Links: KJM’s NY Magazine Profile of Dr....

Sarah and Miranda are joined by Rebecca Kronman, a licensed clinical social worker and co-founder of Plant Parenthood, a community that explores the intersection of psychedelics and the family. She talks about the importance of set and setting, the false dichotomy between healing and joy, and about how psychedelics help some parents heal intergenerational trauma and connect more easily with their...

LitHub contributing editor Janet Manley joins us to talk about the postpartum comedy with a horror twist that started it all, 2018’s Tully. We discuss how the conversation around the postpartum period has changed in six years, what the New York Times got wrong about this film, and what we would go back and offer our postpartum selves. Links: Janet’s newsletter, Kafka’s Baby Janet’s coverage of the...

With author and essayist Lydia Kiesling, we talk about the conflict in Gaza, which has taken the lives of tens of thousands of our fellow mothers and their children. We explore the ways that motherhood has the potential to awaken activism, about feeling frozen, helpless or overwhelmed, as well as how we can take our tender hearts and protective instincts and direct them towards activism and real c...

Author and New York Magazine writer Emily Gould joins Sarah and Miranda to discuss her controversial personal essay, The Lure of Divorce , published in The Cut last month. We tackle the current divorce discourse, the work it takes to support our own mental health, what it’s like to write so intimately and so publicly at the same time, and whether it’s “basic” to be married right now. LINKS:  Emily...

Sarah and Miranda are joined by Priya Joi, a Barcelona-based science journalist and the author of the memoir M(other)land: What I’ve Learned About Parenthood, Race, and Identity . Joi was born in the UK, spent part of her childhood in India, and is raising her own daughter in Barcelona. In this episode we explore how motherhood made questions of race, belonging and identity that Joi had spent her...

We’re giving our listener’s a little treat – a free February Movie Club episode! Author and podcaster Jo Piazza comes on the pod to break down the beloved 1987 working-mom classic, Baby Boom . We talk overt vs. covert misogyny, why it’s time to retire the phrase “having it all,” and of course, the brilliance of style acumen of Diane Keaton. Subscribe to our Patreon to get access to past and future...

Sociologist and writer Kathryn Jezer-Mortonjoins Sarah and Miranda to talk about the intersection of motherhood and what she calls “technological storytelling,” or, the way we construct our identities in the age of social media. We talk about her recent piece on the “core memories” trend as a microcosm of our desire to control our kids’ perception of childhood, why we imitate the visual language o...

Precise, poetic and deeply moving, Tamarin Norwood's much-anticipated book, The Song of the Whole Wide World: On Grief, Motherhood and Poetry , chronicles her experience of having a son, Gabriel, who lived just 72 minutes. In this episode, she joins Miranda and Sarah to share and reflect on passages from her gorgeous book, talk about the ultimate "taboo within a taboo" that is infant...

Every month for our Patreon members we release a special Movie Club episode where we take on movies through the lense of motherhood, and motherhood through the lense of movies. This month, we discuss the Oscar nominations with Tracy Clark Flory. Join our Patreon for as little as $5 a month to hear the full episode! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/mother-culture...

Author and speaker Jessica Slice talks to Sarah about how disability culture has taught her to reject perfectionism, how internalized ableism makes parenting harder for all of us, and the beauty of building a family where everyone accepts and expresses their needs. Links: Jessica’s website and Substack newsletter Disability Visibility , edited by Alice Wong Lucy Webster’s The View From Down Here A...

Midwife, birth trauma healer, and beloved big sister Rebekah Wheeler breaks down what we get wrong about birth trauma, why there is no wrong way to give birth, and what we can do to truly support people through the birth process. Also, Sarah confronts her about never letting her borrow her Oasis t-shirt in middle school, and Miranda gets some free birth healing.  Links: Rebekah’s website Review of...

In which Miranda & Sarah define the many reasons they love Evie Ebert’s motherhood writing, and Evie responds to all the flattery by giving an exceptionally satisfying answer to our “where are your kids right now” question. Then we dig into resolution culture, wondering out loud if maybe (MAYBE) we’re done treating resolution season as the super bowl of self-loathing. Instead, we just might be...

Miranda and Sarah welcome Angela Garbes, author of Essential Labor: Mothering as Social Change and Like A Mother, to the show this week to talk about drinking, sobriety, and the fuzzy, fine lines that we trace around substance use in motherhood. Though it feels like sober curiosity — or full on sobriety — is on-trend, a recent CDC study indicated that more women than ever are binge drinking and dy...

It’s the Mother Culture Origin Story! Sarah and Miranda (that’s us) divulge a little more about who we are, what we’re doing here, how we found each other, and why motherhood continues to earn its place as the focal point of our most obsessive curiosities. We talk pregnancy, anxieties, traps, tenderness, and how we think about what happened to us when we became mothers. What should we tell new mom...

The lovely writer Nancy Reddy joins Miranda and Sarah to talk (and cry a little bit) about the infamous John Hughes Christmas movie extraordinaire, Home Alone . We get into the weeds of Kate McAllister’s power-mom parenting choices, realizing that this bananas plot line actually feels pretty relatable, WTF a “hyper mom” might be, and the gray areas of our collective nostalgia for all things ‘90s....

Switch on the twinkle lights, it’s the Mother Culture Holiday Episode! In which Sara P. (author of Momfluenced and the beloved substack, In Pursuit Of Clean Countertops ) shares hot tips for Santa training your kids, Sarah W. finds out about Elf On A Shelf’s Jewish cousin. Then, Miranda tries to make everyone talk about big questions — like who and what the holidays are even for, and what ritual d...

What do we really mean when we say capitalist patriarchy, gender politics, or even, feminism? Sarah and Miranda bring on a badass professor of feminist economics to school us on all this, plus the good, bad, and ugly of how this shows up in modern motherhood discourse. Katherine Moos is a professor of feminist political economy at UMASS Amherst. She has a Ph. D. in Economics from the New School fo...

Miranda and Sarah are joined by Amanda Montei , the author of the recently published Touched Out: Motherhood, Misogyny, Consent and Control , to talk about the Britney Spears memoir and what it means for moms.  Links:  Amanda Montei in her Substack Newsletter Mad Women Jessica Grose in the New York Times Amanda Hess in the New York Times Lyz in Men Yell at Me Virginia Sole-Smith in Burnt Toast   M...

A recent paper in the journal Pediatrics suggested that parents hover more than they think they do, and that the increases in kids’ anxiety and depression might be related to that lack of independence. Miranda and Sarah explore the implications of this way of thinking about our kids’ well-being, the possibility that they themselves ‘helicopter’ more than they mean to, and what it is about modern p...

The Portland teachers are going on strike and Miranda is in her feelings about it. Luckily, Sarah invited educator and mother Andria Kemp-Sellers on to talk about the possibilities of growing closer in conflict, the resilience of young children, and the joys of civic engagement. Sarah’s newsletter about the Oakland Teacher’s Strike Why US Teachers Have Been Walking Out of Schools Nationwide Garret...

Miranda and Sarah discuss Oliver Burkeman's book, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals , and their own struggles with attention, loss, and letting go. Links: Olver Burkeman’s Four Thousand Weeks Allison P Davis on friends with kids Why I Don’t Feel Guilty for Not Playing with My Kids Sarah’s parenting column, Good Enough Parent Alison Gopnik What do Babies Think? Judith Viorst’s Ne...