Liberating Motherhood

• S2 Ep19: Devon Kuntzman: Parenting for an Emotionally Healthy Future

  Violence and abuse are normalized in every aspect of our culture, and particularly in parenting. No wonder so many women tell me they didn’t recognize abuse until it was too late.  Authoritarian parents set their children up for abusive relationships, and they damage their kids’ self-esteem and emotional intelligence in the process. Whether you call it authoritative parenting, gentle parenting, compassionate parenting, or just not parenting like a jerk on a power trip, a more conscious approach to parenting is one of the best gifts we can give our children.  The challenge is that many parenting experts peddle in shame: shaming mothers, diminishing their struggles, demanding an aesthetic of perfection instead of a commitment to progress.  I’ve long wanted to bring a parenting expert on the podcast, but so much parenting advice just ends up making us feel worse. I don’t think that’s the case with Devon Kuntzman, who specializes in toddlers, but whose core principles can apply to most children. In this podcast episode, we tackle your parenting questions about sensory needs, parenting disputes, screen time, childcare, and so much more.  About Devon Kuntzman Devon Kuntzman, PCC, is the founder of Transforming Toddlerhood, a certified coach, and a mom to a 3-year-old. She’s on a mission to rewrite the narrative on the “terrible twos” and beyond, helping parents see toddlerhood as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to build social, emotional, and relationship skills. As the original toddler parenting coach on Instagram, with a background in psychology and child development, Devon has guided tens of thousands of families worldwide to parent with more calm, confidence, and joy. Her new book, Transforming Toddlerhood, is designed to support, not guilt, parents, offering tools, encouragement, and a fresh perspective to turn this challenging season into one of the most meaningful chapters of the parenting journey. Follow her on Instagram here. 

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• S2 Ep17: Alex Bollen: Good Mother Myths and Scientific Sexism

  This month, I’ve been inundated with messages from folks who love the new pace of podcasts—weekly instead of every other week. I love making the podcast and love giving you what you want, but the podcast is a ton of work, and it underperforms in the algorithm. My data show that people listen to the podcast, but they don’t otherwise engage after or before listening, which pushes it down in the all-powerful algorithm. So I’m asking for your help, and offering something in return: Please heart-react, leave a review, leave a substantive comment, like, share, etc. This is hugely beneficial. I believe with a bit more engagement we can get this podcast performing just as well as my written work. I will continue posting weekly episodes through the month of November. If, by the end of that period, the podcast can get to 50,000 monthly downloads (double the usual number), then I will continue weekly posting. Let’s do it. In a patriarchy, motherhood is impossibly hard. That’s by design. Because if every woman struggles with motherhood, then every mother feels inadequate. This causes us to feel guilty, and to blame our challenges on our individual failings rather than correctly identifying the political forces that make motherhood feel so impossible.  Alex Bollen has worked with mothers, especially in the vulnerable postpartum period, for years. Her new book, Motherdom: Breaking Free from Bad Science and Good Mother Myths, explores the politics of motherhood and especially how myths about “good mothers” set all mothers up for failure.  In this podcast episode, we discuss a wide range of issues, including:  The critical importance of motherhood as a focus of feminist activism.  How the myth of the good mother (and its bad mother opposite) is used to control all women and all mothers.  How patriarchy weaponizes “science” to control and shame mothers.  The weaponization of attachment parenting.  Why we pretend that mothers are stupid, and that nothing mothers do is challenging or intellectual.  How disadvantaged mothers typically must accumulate more skills and ingenuity than other mothers, but are treated like they know and deserve less.  The concept of unmothering, and how we rob Black and other less-privileged mothers of their status as mothers.  How systems of oppression isolate women from other women and destroy systems of community.  Why we devote so much energy to telling mothers to “tough it out,” while robbing them of all resources that would make it possible for them to manage the challenges of motherhood.  About Alex Bollen Alex Bollen is the author of Motherdom: Breaking Free from Bad Science and Good Mother Myths. She was a director of the research agency Ipsos and is now a freelance researcher. Alex is also a Postnatal Practitioner with the NCT, the UK’s largest parenting charity, and has run groups for new mothers in London for over a decade. Motherdom is Alex’s first book. She was inspired to write it because she felt incensed about all the guilt-inducing garbage which is peddled about motherhood. You can find Alex’s book, as well as all other books recommended on the podcast, along with a detailed reading list, at the Liberating Motherhood Bookshop.

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• S2 Ep18: Kate Manne: The Silencing of Women Who Speak Publicly About Anything

  I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what it means to be a public intellectual who also happens to be a woman. The constant criticism feels like a crushing weight that no amount of therapy, resilience, or blocking can render manageable.  Philosopher  Kate Manne has long argued that the abuse patriarchy hurls at women is a policing mechanism designed to punish women who step out of line. It seems clear to me that the endless policing of women who have any public presence is designed to silence us. It is that knowledge that keeps me writing and talking, even when both are incredibly painful.  I brought Kate onto the podcast to talk specifically about this attempt to silence public women and public feminists. Our conversation ended up being about so much more:  What it’s like to speak publicly about anything when you’re a woman.  Feminist moralism as a corrosive force in our movement.  Why women are canceled for everything and men are canceled for just about nothing, and how it leads to a public sphere in which low-value men have replaced women who could have otherwise made great contributions.  The role of shame in moral education and moral behavior, and how resistance to shame might influence feminist discussions.  How we can have better feminist conflict—and why conflicts in feminism are so difficult to manage.  Sex work as an example of one of feminism’s hardest-to-discuss conflicts. We really could have pulled any of the threads in this episode into their own episode; it’s that dense. I always love having Kate on the podcast, and I hope this episode offers lots of food for thought.  I’m releasing this episode along with this post, in which I also discuss the policing of women who speak publicly about anything. I hope that, together, both posts will encourage us all to think more deeply and broadly, and to build solidarity rather than demanding immediate consensus.  About Kate Manne Kate Manne is an associate professor at the Sage School of philosophy at Cornell University. She specializes in moral, social, and feminist philosophy, and has written three books: DOWN GIRL: The Logic of Misogyny (Oxford University Press, 2018), ENTITLED: How Male Privilege Hurts Women (Crown, 2020) and UNSHRINKING: How to Face Fatphobia (Crown, 2024), a National Book Award finalist in non-fiction. In addition to academic work, she regularly writes opinion pieces and essays for a wider audience, including in outlets such as The New York Times, The Cut, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, The Nation, and Time. She writes a substack newsletter, More to Hate, exploring misogyny, fatphobia, and their intersection. You can find all of Kate’s books, all the books I discuss on the podcast, and a long list of book recommendations, at the Liberating Motherhood Bookshop.  If you like this podcast or find my work valuable, I hope you’ll consider supporting it! Your paid support ensures I never have to take advertiser dollars, and am beholden only to my readership. You’ll also get access to one more podcast episode each month, eight additional pieces of written work, and membership in the Liberating Motherhood Community. You can also support this podcast for free! Heart-reacting makes a huge difference, as does commenting and sharing on social media. If you listen to this podcast on a podcast platform, please leave a positive review; it makes a huge difference. Oh, and tell the people you love about this podcast too!

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• S2 Ep16: Virginia Sole-Smith: Anti-Fatness as a Tool of Oppression

  The devaluation of fatness in patriarchy is no accident—and it’s not about health. Patriarchy convinces every woman she’s fat, or at risk of becoming fat, and forces us to spend our lives thinking about our bodies instead of the things that truly matter most to us. As we’ve seen over and over again, a woman who hates herself is more vulnerable to abuse and less likely to abandon shame, band together with other women, and demand better.  But we can and must demand better. Virginia Sole-Smith is on a mission to end anti-fatness and diet culture for good. She came on the show to talk to me about fatphobia, diet culture, and strategies for raising kids who are not so preoccupied by their bodies and food.  Some of the topics we discuss include:  What diet culture is, and how it extends well beyond diets.  Why diet talk isn’t really about health, and how best to respond to concern-trolling about weight.  Giving yourself permission to not forever live on a hamster wheel of weight loss.  Healthy strategies for talking to kids about bodies, beauty, and weight.  How to talk to kids about gendered beauty labor.  Managing negative food and body messages from friends, school, and daycare—plus, when to opt out of diet and body-related assignments.  Is perimenopause content diet content?  The problem with Dr. Becky, and with parenting advice generally.  How we can feel hopeful in a political climate that seeks to demoralize us.  About Virginia Sole-Smith As a journalist, Virginia Sole-Smith has reported from kitchen tables, graduated from beauty school, and gone swimming in a mermaid’s tail. Virginia’s latest book, Fat Talk: Parenting in the Age of Diet Culture, is a New York Times bestseller that investigates how the “war on childhood obesity” has caused kids to absorb a daily onslaught of body shame from peers, school, diet culture, and families— and offers research-based strategies to help parents name and navigate the anti-fat bias that infiltrates our schools, doctor’s offices and dinner tables. Virginia began her career in women’s magazines, alternatively challenging beauty standards and gender norms, and upholding diet culture through her health, nutrition and fitness reporting. This work led to her first book, The Eating Instinct: Food Culture, Body Image and Guilt in America, in which Virginia explored how we can reconnect to our bodies in a culture that’s constantly giving us so many mixed messages about both those things. Virginia’s work appears in the New York Times Magazine, Scientific American, and many other publications. She now writes the popular body liberation newsletter Burnt Toast and hosts the Burnt Toast Podcast. Virginia lives in New York’s Hudson Valley with her two kids, two cats, a dog, two geckos, eight chickens, and way too many houseplants. You can find all of Virginia’s books, all books we talk about on the podcast, and a ton of book recommendations at the Liberating Motherhood Bookshop. 

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• S2 Ep15: Marlene Gerber Fried: Abortion rights and reproductive justice

  “Hope is a muscle.” — Marlene Gerber Fried  Marlene Gerber Fried has been a leading reproductive justice and choice activist for decades. She’s seen and survived times of both hopelessness and triumph. She partners often with women of color, especially Loretta Ross, and her expansive vision of what a better world might look like feels like exactly what we need right now. It was such a gift to talk to her. It left me feeling more hopeful, and much more energized. I hope our conversation has the same effect on you.  In these episode, Marlene and I talk about a wide range of topics, including:  What a “good abortion” might look like in a healthier, safer world.  Reproductive justice and liberation as more expansive visions of reproductive choice.  Why we must sustain hope, and how we do that as everything burns around us.  How the Republican fascist overreach may destroy itself.  Why we must simultaneously take fascist threats seriously and avoid being daunted by them.  How we can parent children in a world that makes us terrified for their futures. What it takes to sustain a lifetime of successful activism.  About Marlene Gerber Fried Marlene Gerber Fried is a longtime reproductive rights activist and scholar. She was the founding president of the National Network of Abortion Funds and the Abortion Rights Fund of Western Massachusetts. Currently she is Professor Emerita at Hampshire College, where she taught for 37 years. She is Senior Faculty Advisor to Collective Power for Reproductive Justice, serves on the board of Women Help Women, and co-chairs the Our Bodies Ourselves expert panel on Abortion and Contraception with Pamela Merritt and Candace Bond-Theriault. She edited, From Abortion to Reproductive Freedom: Transforming A Movement, and co-authored with Jael Silliman, Elena Gutierrez and Loretta Ross, Undivided Rights: Women of Color Organize for Reproductive Justice. Her most recent book, Abortion and Reproductive Justice; An Essential Guide to Resistance, co-authored with Loretta Ross has just been released. You can buy Abortion and Reproductive Justice, the latest book by Marlene Fried and Loretta Ross, here.  When Roe fell, I interviewed a wide range of experts about how to survive in this new and frightening world. I talk about that piece in the podcast. You can find it here. You can also read my long-running Daily Kos abortion column, which painstakingly outlines the case for reproductive rights (why bans don’t stop abortion, why abortion is vital for health, how abortion laws affect an entire community, and so much more) here.  A quick programming note: I am experimenting with publishing a podcast every week for the month of October. I want to see if this pace feels sustainable for me, and if it helps the podcast grow. If you like the more-frequent posting schedule, you can vote by sharing the podcast, leaving a positive review on your favorite podcast platform, heart-reacting it on Substack, or sharing on social media. These actions help the podcast reach a wider audience and can make it easier for me to continue making this podcast. 

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