Culture Study Podcast - Checking In On The Momfluencers

00:00:00.520 The construction of motherhood in the United States has always been conservative. 0.99

00:00:06.940 The way we've sold and marketed and policed motherhood, it's always prioritized a white, upper-class woman who doesn't work, who can completely devote herself to husband, children, and domesticity.

00:00:21.980 So I think that's the model that so many of us have been fed for so long that even if we see a mother who might be the most progressive mother in the world, if she's presenting as super nurturing, super soft, super feminine, super domestic, she might read as conservative.

00:00:42.080 this is the culture study podcast and i'm ann helen peterson i'm sarah peterson no relation

00:00:55.480 but it is spelled the same way oh we're both norwegian well actually aren't you not norwegian

00:01:01.600 um mostly danish and german right that's right because the en is danish mine is because the

00:01:07.660 they gave us the name when we came over so oh okay okay um but we do kind of look alike and

00:01:14.260 we have the same hair um i write the in pursuit of clean countertops newsletter over at patreon

00:01:23.600 and i also co-host the clean countertops uh podcast with emily j smith and i wrote the book

00:01:30.060 momfluenced you are my ballerina farm go-to person i think a lot of people who listen to

00:01:38.480 this podcast know that you are the place to go when your ballerina farm news breaks and to be

00:01:45.400 clear ballerina farm is a momfluencer account like what's the quick spiel like what is the first like

00:01:52.120 how do you explain it you're like it's so funny there's so many adjectives that we have to use i

00:01:57.880 know. Yeah, go ahead. And she's so like lodged in my consciousness as just like a part of the

00:02:03.660 atmosphere at this point. Yeah. But OK, so she is a mother of nine who lives in Utah with her

00:02:11.140 jet blue air husband, Daniel. They have a ranch. They now have a farm store. They're Mormon. And

00:02:20.880 she has over 10 million followers across platforms. It might even be over 15 million at this point.

00:02:27.020 and she's sort of known as the reigning queen of trad wives yeah even though she would never

00:02:34.980 call herself a trad wife no no and like the er mom fluencer i think in this moment but there is

00:02:42.500 big ballerina farm news it's true that just broke uh by the time this comes out it will be like in

00:02:49.200 the last like month or so so how would you describe this news oh my gosh so okay so she

00:02:59.040 announced her ninth pregnancy via an advertisement slash short film i think is what they called it

00:03:06.600 yeah um but it's an ad for their new protein powder um it was very the timing was really

00:03:14.760 interesting because they released it right after they were embroiled in a raw milk controversy

00:03:19.600 yes um where they had to cease operations of their raw milk because uh there were contaminations

00:03:26.620 found by health inspectors and just so we're clear because they've had to underline this

00:03:32.720 1700 times in like so many different releases and like direct like videos no contaminated milk

00:03:40.960 was sold correct no uh customers were harmed as a result of the raw milk but i would also ask like

00:03:50.180 we don't know if anybody got sick from raw milk before obviously right but yes um so yeah she

00:03:59.720 announced the ninth pregnancy and i have to say this might sound naive but i was slightly surprised

00:04:06.140 she was going for one more only because they've really geared up the business side of operations

00:04:14.560 um they're like full steam ahead with product releases and i thought she was sort of gonna hang

00:04:23.960 she was really going hard in terms of business woman as identity yeah i mean embroiled in the

00:04:30.180 trad wife as identity, obviously. So I was a little surprised. Sarah, this is where our

00:04:36.360 thinking, like our brains don't work with this. And I'm not saying this like in a condescending

00:04:43.200 way, really. It's more that like, I think what she would say and what I've seen a lot of other

00:04:48.240 trad wives say, and yes, I know that having babies is for content, but I think what she would say is

00:04:53.440 like i i left it up to god like whether or not i was gonna get pregnant a hundred percent yeah i

00:05:00.440 know that's the talking point they've been saying that since like day one when they had like six

00:05:05.620 kids they did a ama where it's her and daniel on the couch and how many kids are we having and they

00:05:11.620 just look at each other and smile and say we'll just have to see yep but i kind of thought behind

00:05:17.920 the scenes they were like okay let's not keep going but you're right you're right of course

00:05:22.160 she had another baby. Of course she had another baby. So when you say nine, that's, that's

00:05:26.320 including the new baby. So there's nine total. Got it. Got it. Um, I would be, if I had nine

00:05:32.500 kids, I would be so like, this is just how my brain works. No, no, no. I would want to go for

00:05:37.600 10 just to like have 10. Oh, sure. Yeah. Well, her sister has 11. So, so you know, no, I think

00:05:47.820 you're right i'm gonna like officially say i think there will be a tenth it's just such a round

00:05:53.520 number but also we should know that there was a pregnancy announcement and then how many days

00:06:00.520 later the baby was there the baby went the baby had been born so there's so many things that were

00:06:08.280 off about how this went down because like everyone that follows momfluencer culture knows that 0.92

00:06:14.180 pregnancies are good for business yeah so she lost out on months of pregnancy and bump content

00:06:21.360 yeah and i have to think she had a conversation with herself about privacy yeah because i i truly

00:06:31.300 don't know why else they would have saved it until the very last minute and she also has what let's 1.00

00:06:37.460 put this in heavily quote quotation marks she has cute pregnancies oh yeah so she's not trying 0.99

00:06:43.840 to shield herself from the public eye in these moments and when i say acute pregnancy i mean

00:06:48.500 that she has like the idealized like it looks like she swallowed a basketball and then it looks like 0.98

00:06:54.060 she no longer swallowed a basketball she doesn't have like any other effects on her body seemingly

00:06:59.560 no or at least it has not appeared in camera with those um so that doesn't seem like the concern i 0.90

00:07:06.060 wonder if she was just like bored of bump content if i were her i'd be like we've done this i don't

00:07:10.820 want to do the sequel yeah but she could have been drinking the electrolyte powder oh yeah i'm 0.98

00:07:17.760 growing a baby and i need more hydration the electrolyte powder is also sold by ballerina

00:07:23.460 farms inc just to be fair yeah yes i just feel like i don't know i yes she's probably bored of

00:07:30.200 that content but also her content has been sort of the same for years so i don't know yeah i

00:07:36.020 It is, I think, a very publicity 101 transfer of attention away from raw milk as the conversation

00:07:46.140 that people were having about Ballerina Farms to we are now talking about a baby that is

00:07:54.420 coming, a baby that is here and like how she hid it, too, which then becomes like a secondary

00:08:00.060 sort of level of discourse.

00:08:01.620 How do you think Ballerina Farm fits into the broader landscape of momfluencers in 2026?

00:08:08.820 I mean, she's sort of in a class unto herself.

00:08:12.080 I mean, there are, of course, plenty of other trad momfluencers, but none of them would be a name brand recognition that she has.

00:08:23.580 So, yes, she sort of represents the part of the momosphere that is trad oriented.

00:08:29.860 Yeah. And then, of course, there's the hustle and grind momfluencers that I I'm newly fascinated with Brooke Raybould. She has been around for a while and her whole thing is like dominating motherhood at all costs. And it's always been exhausting and baffling, but she's becoming like a little more manic. She was accused of plagiarizing an entire Disney guide.

00:08:57.760 um oh this one yes yes got it I just looked her up on Instagram yeah um mom to five boys how to

00:09:07.500 become a ski family wow there's one about how to buy a mom car we're talking about the reels to be

00:09:15.080 clear yeah yeah yeah yeah um 1.2 million followers right yeah empowering moms with structure and

00:09:21.520 strategy? Ooh, there's a lot of whiteboards, a lot of whiteboards. Oh, wait, I just closed the

00:09:29.280 tab. She was reading a book today that she shared on her stories. It's called something about how

00:09:37.300 we're too comfortable. It's like the age of discomfort. It's like a very Tony Robbins-esque

00:09:42.760 like get up at 5 a.m. type of thing yeah yeah yeah yeah but um yeah so I would say they're the

00:09:49.640 productivity momfluencers I guess um there are like fashion-y momfluencers there's like

00:10:00.480 fitness related momfluencers I don't know I don't know I what are you noticing in terms of trends

00:10:07.540 of types i often follow people because you tell me to like just right now i was like follow um

00:10:14.120 uh but then i my like my longest mom fluencer relationships are all with like the very trad

00:10:21.900 wifey ones oh yeah you're the farmer yeah yeah talk about her like i like there's this one that 0.67

00:10:28.060 i am so fascinated with and i talk to you about all the time um empty promised land and she just

00:10:35.640 had her i believe 12th kid um and she just has this affect that is very kind yeah i think like

00:10:46.680 she's just kind of like rolling with it like she's the mom of 12 that could have been from

00:10:53.660 like 1920 1950 1970 like there is a timeless quality about her she also like is she's kind

00:11:03.680 of guileless in a way that I think a lot of them aren't. There is no productivity hustle. She's

00:11:11.660 obviously very religious. She's married to a pastor, but also totally not weirded out by the

00:11:18.640 fact that her eldest son's wife is also pregnant at the same time. That's just like, huh, that's

00:11:26.740 kind of cool like i love it yes no i do she is rare in that she doesn't seem to have belabored 1.00

00:11:36.760 over her branding like she does like a lot of these momfluencers you know they'll have a little 0.94

00:11:43.640 tag in their bio that's like just a mom yeah but she actually embodies that to me in a unique way

00:11:51.420 the other thing that i'd know and i would love to hear your thoughts on this and we'll talk more 0.73

00:11:55.180 about it as we go through, but I just see fewer and fewer of the actual moms in my life posting

00:12:01.200 anything. Yeah. I mean, I have like older kids now, I guess. So I'm sort of removed from my

00:12:10.860 peers sharing baby content. Yeah. But for sure, I think it's a totally different set of mores.

00:12:20.520 I think people are sharing more in group chats or, you know, family and friends accounts.

00:12:30.700 And I get why.

00:12:32.760 I mean, I just read Fortessa Latifi's book.

00:12:36.360 Have you read it yet?

00:12:37.900 I'm interviewing her for a culture study like in the next couple of weeks.

00:12:40.980 Okay, good, good, good, good.

00:12:42.700 And it's harrowing is the word that comes to mind.

00:12:46.220 It's a book about the lives of children of influencers.

00:12:48.840 A lot of them are from vlogger families.

00:12:52.500 And it's harrowing.

00:12:57.080 I mean, there's the pedophilia, you know, component of things.

00:13:01.700 There's the children growing up from babyhood to be, like, trained to look at cameras and associate their selfhood with performance.

00:13:11.940 And there's the financial implications.

00:13:14.840 Like she interviews a lot of these parents, most of whom are mothers, and they acknowledge

00:13:21.340 all the risks and the possible, you know, the potential for harm for their children.

00:13:28.820 But if they compare what they'd earn in a regular nine to five, they always come to

00:13:36.160 the side of like, well, you know, this is working for us now.

00:13:39.100 And if we ever have to change it, we will.

00:13:41.000 Yeah.

00:13:41.480 So all this to say is I understand why people don't want to share their little newborn babies all over Instagram as much anymore.

00:13:51.580 This reminds me of another momfluencer who has like completely not turned herself into a momfluencer.

00:13:58.260 And that is Brooklyn of Brooklyn and Bailey, who were, I call them the Baylor twins because that's when I first really came to understand who they were.

00:14:07.080 They got a brand deal at Baylor when they decided to go to Baylor.

00:14:10.000 Like, they partnered with Baylor.

00:14:12.020 They were very, very famous before they went to college as their mom ran the account Cute Hairstyles for Girls.

00:14:20.300 Yeah.

00:14:20.960 Which, just take a moment with that.

00:14:24.920 And the whole family also are kind of, like, quasi-sub-influencers.

00:14:29.960 They're also Mormon, but have, like, different relationships to Mormonism.

00:14:35.060 They wear tank tops, for example.

00:14:36.540 They're not wearing...

00:14:37.640 Right, right.

00:14:38.780 So they're pretty young.

00:14:39.920 they got both the twins got married pretty immediately after college one of them married

00:14:45.860 one of the guys that she went on on a date with through like the like get me five boyfriends

00:14:51.480 video stunt essentially wow that's brooklyn and they had a baby and brooklyn does not show her

00:14:58.720 baby's face in any capacity yeah always a star over her face like yep i think has really come 0.97

00:15:05.960 to understand a very different under like what she wants for her daughter or for a kid I don't

00:15:10.160 even know if it's a boy or girl honestly yeah um is very different than what she grew up with

00:15:14.960 that modeled is really interesting it is yeah for sure okay we're talking about the landscape of

00:15:22.300 monfluencing right now we're going to talk about big questions and get to some more specific ones

00:15:27.580 but let's start off with this question from sydney when did becoming a new mom immediately

00:15:32.280 sign you up for becoming a mommy influencer. I have watched many of my friends rush to share

00:15:37.840 all their experiences online when they're a brand new mom, and they have a sample size of one. I can

00:15:43.860 remember being pregnant and having to stay off the internet for periods of time because the

00:15:48.000 information was so overwhelming. Every mom has an opinion on developmental milestones,

00:15:54.260 breastfeeding, sleeping, baby led weaning, you name it. And frankly, a lot of it is conflicting

00:16:00.120 information and ultimately a ploy to get you to buy something that they'll get commission off of.

00:16:06.740 Is being a mom influencer just the new MLM scheme? Where do we draw the line at sharing our

00:16:12.640 experiences online, but not sharing information that can potentially not be helpful, even hurtful,

00:16:19.400 to a vulnerable, tired, emotional, all the things population?

00:16:23.840 so this sydney is contradicting what i said about how i'm not seeing the friendship right but i do

00:16:31.300 think that most of my friends also have kids who are now past like the kindergarten age

00:16:35.720 right right so that is a real difference so what does this bring you well i hear two things in

00:16:41.140 that question um one thing that she brings up that i think is a real trend is when you become

00:16:48.260 a mother for the first time yourself, you go through this experience of forming your own

00:16:56.060 set of rules and guidelines for how to get through every day. And when you're the parent of a baby,

00:17:07.880 the baby is changing so quickly, the developmental milestones, et cetera. So you're constantly having

00:17:12.800 to evolve and become an expert in something new totally and so I think if it's a normie mom you

00:17:20.080 know somebody who's not earning money from her content there's a little piece of it that feels

00:17:24.260 like they're uh talking to themselves like they want to assure themselves that okay I figured

00:17:30.460 this out this is the best way to cut out the afternoon nap yeah um and I think you know it's

00:17:38.780 so bewildering, especially when you're a first time mother, that there's maybe another piece

00:17:42.920 that's looking for external validation. Yeah. Or somebody to say like, oh, thank you for sharing

00:17:47.860 that. I've been trying to figure out how to cut the afternoon nap, which imbues your skill set

00:17:54.120 with some respect, I think. Yeah. That's such a good point. And then in terms of the

00:18:02.900 financially motivated momfluencers, I think it's similar in that to market themselves as experts,

00:18:11.860 they need to present themselves as experts. So there needs to be one way to do everything

00:18:19.000 because otherwise they're not the holder of secrets. And of course, anybody with kids knows

00:18:26.360 there's a million jillion ways to do every little thing in context and individuality,

00:18:31.440 all of it there is no one way to do everything but i do think that's the key to selling motherhood

00:18:35.580 and i think that there it's less effective to make a reel that's like two things i'm kind of

00:18:43.460 trying out and haven't decided if they work yet instead of stop doing these three things now you

00:18:50.140 know like that sort of declarative content is much more successful for sure i i i also think

00:19:00.360 like there is an interesting tension between people who may have like a text group of moms

00:19:08.060 that they get some of this information from but that's also like super intimate and if you don't

00:19:14.740 do the thing that someone else does then it almost feels like you're like rejecting them even if you

00:19:19.960 do have that group which can be complicated in its own way still sometimes like there's a question

00:19:25.560 that you don't want to share or you don't want to declare right like you want to seek information

00:19:31.120 from people who are not also your best friends right right and so you might seek yeah the mom

00:19:36.980 answer for that yeah yeah for sure and also that we're at such a difficult place I think with like

00:19:43.000 the wisdom of our parents generation no longer being the wisdom of this generation so in the

00:19:50.320 past, you know, for so, for hundreds of years, you, you received information, really solid

00:19:56.520 information from your elders. Right. Right. But yeah, I mean, it's, it takes two seconds to think

00:20:02.960 of all the ways that their parenting techniques have been either vilified or, you know, proven to

00:20:09.840 be unhealthy. And I mean, even just thinking about food, the way we feed our kids as compared to

00:20:15.340 the way boomers did. It's just, it's huge. Yeah. And they were just doing their best. 0.99

00:20:20.400 Of course. Of course. Of course.

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00:24:40.700 Okay, we have two questions about the various political overtones and undertones.

00:24:45.340 this first question comes from Allie. I feel like we've gotten to a point where motherhood on a

00:24:49.940 public stage always feels conservative coded. How did we get here? Are there people trying to be

00:24:55.000 truly progressive momfluencers or is performative motherhood always a bit conservative? How can the

00:25:00.340 left reclaim the family and motherhood? There are so many queer people in my community redefining 1.00

00:25:05.680 family and parenting in such amazing ways, but still so much of my associations with motherhood

00:25:10.860 our mom talk or ballerina farm oh i love this question i know um yeah because i think

00:25:19.620 the construction of motherhood in the united states has always been conservative yeah the way

00:25:26.640 we've sold and marketed and policed motherhood it's always prioritized a white upper class 1.00

00:25:35.700 woman who doesn't work who can completely devote herself to husband children and domesticity 0.72

00:25:40.800 So I think that's the model that so many of us have been fed for so long that even if we see a mother who might be the most progressive mother in the world, if she's presenting as super nurturing, super soft, super feminine, super domestic, she might read as conservative. 0.60

00:26:00.920 Yeah. I saw someone complaining the other day, I think quite righteously about how people say we're starting a family when they have a kid and how like there's just no understanding of like all the different ways that you can be a family or that like like just having a partner can be a family.

00:26:23.600 You know, like there's this idea that like family only begins with parenthood, explicitly like biological parenthood in a lot of times.

00:26:32.980 What have you thought about this?

00:26:34.700 I mean, I think that is so tied to how we communicate via imagery.

00:26:41.580 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:26:43.460 Like if you are taking –

00:26:46.520 Who gets to send the holiday card, right?

00:26:48.240 Right, right.

00:26:48.740 Exactly, exactly.

00:26:49.780 Like if you're – if it's you and two roommates and that's your chosen family, there's so much less cultural and visual shorthand to communicate your love and devotion for each other.

00:27:01.020 Yeah.

00:27:01.340 Whereas you throw kids in, you're hugging the kid, you're kissing the kid.

00:27:05.440 Yeah.

00:27:06.140 You know, there's – it's just a quick – it's the way we have been taught to communicate family and devotion is through kids and nurturing of kids.

00:27:17.140 Even though, of course, to your point, there are a million different, you know, shapes of family.

00:27:22.700 I was interviewing someone for my book about being an important person like in another kid's life.

00:27:27.660 She's she's an auntie, not by related by blood, but a really important person in her her best friend's kid's life.

00:27:34.120 And this best friend recently got divorced and was like had to figure out what to do with some of the preexisting family photos.

00:27:43.140 and the auntie was like hey I'm gonna pay for us and our other very close friends

00:27:50.420 to do portraits together outside just like fun living yeah you know like a holiday card

00:27:56.880 portraits and she sent me some of them and they are so joyful and like what a beautiful thing

00:28:02.600 but this is something that we never think to do apart from like I don't know wedding photography

00:28:08.200 It's, like, the only time that we get, like, formal photos with our friends.

00:28:12.060 Totally.

00:28:12.960 Oh, I love that so much.

00:28:14.320 I know.

00:28:14.920 And, like, what a great thing to put on your wall.

00:28:17.100 Like, here's this celebration, this beautiful portrait of our family as we conceive of it.

00:28:23.960 I feel like another thing I'm thinking about with this question is I think she asked how can the left take back, like, you know, family values.

00:28:33.160 I don't think those are the words.

00:28:34.160 But, you know, something to that effect because, you know, for all intents and purposes, the left is on the side of family values in meaningful ways that involve legislation and social safety nets in a way that the right is diametrically opposed.

00:28:50.480 But somebody told me recently, I can't remember if it was Pew, the statistic is 43% of families have a mother and a father that are on their first marriage with kids in the family and the kids are only from that relationship.

00:29:10.920 It's only 43%. 0.90

00:29:13.280 Right.

00:29:13.580 and so you know to the listener's point it's not the majority and it's not representative

00:29:20.760 of most of us but it is the dominant uh imagery i think yeah yeah and i think that that

00:29:28.980 still rules the discourse even though i think like i see on instagram so many different types

00:29:36.640 of families here are my stepkids here are like this is our big extended family there are different

00:29:42.920 ways that you can represent this yeah but they do they still are not like the hegemonic understanding

00:29:50.680 of what family looks like and right i just i think there's some complicated stuff going on here about

00:29:56.360 like how we represent ideals instead of the way that everyone including conservatives right lots

00:30:03.840 and lots of conservatives live in different arrangements of family yep but there still is

00:30:10.100 this idea that like family is what matters and family looks like this right or it's not worth

00:30:18.460 being visually proud of or visually communicating right and I think there's also this idealized like

00:30:25.900 family is you know mom taking care of all of the stuff at home yep and this gets to the

00:30:32.280 they're really complicated tension of like all of these mom fluencers who are spending a lot of time 0.98

00:30:39.340 doing jobs, producing content for the internet. Right. But we have to swallow that tension in 1.00

00:30:47.140 order to believe the fantasy. Right. And I mean, I don't even think most people do

00:30:52.720 whole cloth believe the fantasy anymore. Right. You know, like I think media literacy has really

00:30:59.580 come a long way in terms of performance on Instagram. Right. But again, I really think

00:31:06.820 there's something neurological going where we've just been so culturally conditioned to see

00:31:14.120 something and make meaning from it that even if we intellectually know like this is a tiny little

00:31:20.620 snippet from this person's actual life it just gets into your consciousness as truth and again

00:31:28.200 I think that's because of the visuals yeah and I do think you know sometimes people are like

00:31:32.260 oh well like you know in the 1950s everyone was like leave it to beaver and like something like

00:31:38.360 leave it to beaver also existed as this aspirational space right during that time like

00:31:43.880 donna reed was an i was like the the mom fluencer of that time right but lots and lots of people

00:31:51.280 were like this is not my reality this can't be our reality this isn't like in fact most of the 1.00

00:31:56.240 moms that i know who are in this position are maybe like taking some lotus like opiates and 1.00

00:32:01.520 passing out on the couch right like yeah or have a serious drinking problem and hate their lives 1.00

00:32:06.300 like right all the mystique all of this is happening but if someone were to look back

00:32:13.040 on this period in time they would look at a text like ballerina farm and think like

00:32:17.340 that yeah that was what people were going for when it's not the case right not remotely like 0.66

00:32:24.060 the fact that you could have watched leave it to beaver and been like this is bullshit the same way 0.99

00:32:29.580 that I follow Ballerina Farm and I'm like, this is bullshit. Totally. Totally. Okay. Progressive 1.00

00:32:37.020 momfluencers. This question comes from Lizzie. I've been thinking about more left-leaning feminist

00:32:42.240 or pseudo-feminist mom influencers, many of whom focus on things like the lack of paid leave and

00:32:47.840 childcare available to families and division of domestic responsibility between men and women.

00:32:53.120 While I generally agree with much of their content, I have found that it can slide into

00:32:56.840 the grievance politics that we see across the political spectrum. For example, I'm thinking of

00:33:01.440 a video from Paige Connell at She is a Page Turner, where she defends taking her Christmas

00:33:05.980 decorations down on December 26th because by the end of the holidays, moms are, quote, burnt out.

00:33:11.720 First of all, I don't think you need to defend when you take your Christmas decorations down, 0.93

00:33:15.620 but I think she just has to produce content all the time. And secondly, every decision doesn't

00:33:19.980 have to be about making a feminist statement. As a mom of young kids myself, I find the holidays

00:33:23.820 stressful, but I don't feel burnt out at the end. Is this engagement bait, or is she really trying

00:33:28.720 to contribute to the conversation with this? This is just one example, but what do you think this

00:33:34.140 kind of short-form daily content from moms of young children means for feminist praxis in 2026? 1.00

00:33:41.560 Incredible culture study question. I love it. So good. So good.

00:33:47.920 This is the sentence, what do you think this sort of short-form daily content from moms of 0.99

00:33:53.020 young children means for feminist praxis in 2026 like you are interrogating that question in your 0.98

00:33:58.920 work all the time like that is you are trying to get to the heart of this like when we are making

00:34:04.700 this content about daily lives or when people are making this content about daily lives like

00:34:09.200 where does this how does this contribute to our understanding of like feminist liberation so right

00:34:15.380 where do you go with this question oh so many places um i think the progressivism piece is

00:34:22.280 really interesting here. I was talking to someone recently about, um, they were noticing

00:34:27.880 this sort of rise of progressive momfluencers that, you know, it's all about their politics

00:34:35.440 and it's all about like how many, uh, no Kings protests can we get our kids to, um, how many

00:34:41.980 hours of volunteer work can we get our kids to, you know, uh, to want to do. And all of these

00:34:50.000 things are good and valuable but i also think um being politically engaged doesn't look the same

00:34:57.300 for everyone and i do think that progressives just like conservatives can go too hard on this

00:35:07.360 is the right way to do things and you're either excelling or you're failing and there's no

00:35:13.280 middle ground. Um, because I think, I mean, I certainly feel guilt from time to time about

00:35:20.440 like, I'm not doing enough in X, Y, and Z, uh, parenting space to foster, you know,

00:35:27.060 fill in the blank within my kids. So I, I think just any time I'm influencer of any political

00:35:33.860 persuasion is selling all or nothing, it's going to be alienating, you know?

00:35:40.420 yeah yeah for sure and then this question about labor essentially i'm seeing this a lot more too 0.52

00:35:46.980 about like moms do too much labor let's like unpack some of what we have been what we have 0.98

00:35:54.920 internalized we should be doing all the time which i think is generally a good thing like

00:36:00.980 pointing at something and being like you don't have to do this right right for sure yeah um

00:36:07.140 like yeah but her the thing about the christmas tree like is she just doing that for content and

00:36:13.280 it's like probably partially yeah because that is her brand so i'm sure she's looking at every

00:36:20.180 aspect of her daily life and saying like how can this fit the narrative i am selling and i don't

00:36:25.600 think that's necessarily like um an insidious thing but i think if you make you know all of

00:36:34.140 your income from branding yourself as a certain kind of parent that just becomes part of what you

00:36:43.320 do I think right okay could I just point out that taking your decorations down on the 26th

00:36:49.020 that's actually way more work I let them sit around and tell like the fifth the sixth until

00:36:55.940 the tree is like disintegrating in front of me a total fire hazard get it out yep for sure yeah

00:37:03.980 like it is the 26 is like very it's aggressive that's aggressive but i hate that like you can't

00:37:12.180 have a video that's just like i took my christmas decorations on the down on the 26 because i don't

00:37:17.420 have anything else to do and i can't stay still right right oh my god i was i brought up brooke

00:37:23.660 uh rebolt at the beginning of this because she's just really on my mind lately but

00:37:26.980 if you want to analyze daily content check her out because she will make content out of anything

00:37:36.420 she today had her her kid i guess made breakfast so there's like story after story of he made his

00:37:46.100 own breakfast he made breakfast for everyone this is what he made let me talk to him about

00:37:49.760 how he made it this is why i'm proud of him like it's a tiny little snippet of the day

00:37:55.360 that has to you have to make meaning of it you know yeah yeah you have to like well and that

00:38:01.340 is exhausting right it's like oh my god yeah the cotidian activities of the day trying to connect

00:38:07.680 them to this larger thesis of your account right yes have you tried doing this ever oh my god um

00:38:16.520 i don't think so i don't think so well way back in the day like forever ago when i was just like

00:38:23.980 saying to myself, hmm, can I do something with writing that is work related? It was like heyday

00:38:30.320 of mommy bloggers. And my sister was like, you got to start a blog. And so like she took some 1.00

00:38:35.340 photos of me. And I did go through a phase of like Instagram lensing my life where I'd be going

00:38:43.080 throughout the day and be like, hmm, does that tray of shoes look vaguely artsy? Like, you know

00:38:47.960 what I mean yes so it's like I had a very specific visual lens for it but I don't think I have never

00:38:54.780 fancied myself a parenting expert so I've never even remotely thought of uh yeah parenting stuff

00:39:01.560 like that how much of this is like very millennial oh like all of this everything we're talking about

00:39:09.880 yeah yeah i just i think of this particular the urge to narrativize yes the urge to to document

00:39:19.960 everything yeah instead of doing like the cool kid monthly photo dump which is much more like

00:39:27.540 a momfluencer like rudy jude who is like can't be bothered right or like how allison roman does it

00:39:33.580 That is a very different style of, like, narrativizing your parenting.

00:39:40.000 It's still narrativizing, to be very clear.

00:39:42.120 But it's, like, the quarterly magazine version instead of the, like, kind of trashy, like.

00:39:50.760 At the grocery store checkout.

00:39:52.200 Yes.

00:39:53.960 But it's also a thing connected to this.

00:39:56.960 We're generalizing here.

00:39:58.340 But this, like, very millennial ethos of, like, doing everything all the time.

00:40:02.680 Yes.

00:40:03.240 And, like, I think because so many of us were raised with the follow your dreams mentality, that, like, there's this inner engine within us that is, like, constantly, like, telling us, like, make meaning, make meaning, make meaning.

00:40:19.680 Like, is this a passion?

00:40:20.840 Is this a passion?

00:40:21.660 Are you passionate?

00:40:22.340 Are you passionate?

00:40:23.700 And so I feel like that's just in the background of all of our little, you know.

00:40:29.300 Yeah.

00:40:29.860 Yeah.

00:40:30.020 But, yes.

00:40:31.000 And it also.

00:40:31.640 Some things don't need to mean anything.

00:40:33.240 like that shoe rack doesn't mean anything uh going back to the previous question about mlms

00:40:42.280 i always always think about like the way that mlms thrive is within communities where it's very

00:40:51.960 difficult to get any sort of actual part-time work so getting that extra money yeah it's very

00:40:58.460 difficult or like doing something that makes you feel like you're producing something right like a

00:41:04.560 creative outlet and because we have told moms that if you're doing something that's not related to

00:41:10.200 parenting then it's actually not good right like if you're doing a hobby that has nothing to do

00:41:15.540 with parenting that is that is not good parenting so yeah you can't put your creative energy into

00:41:20.900 let's say painting or going outside of the home in any way you have you are tethered to the domestic

00:41:26.440 sphere and you need to make something that also makes money like that is how people get caught

00:41:32.880 into this trap is it is the way to make some sort of money right right in the conf the ideological

00:41:38.860 and practical confines that you are allotted right well and it's also really similar to mlms in that

00:41:46.140 there's really only a small percentage of mom influencers as a very very top that are making

00:41:51.380 like wild money and i think it is presented as this any mom with a camera can do it and be

00:42:00.280 successful yeah and that's a hundred percent not the case um and the recruitment is not as explicit

00:42:07.100 no no but there is it's still there is recruitment but it's yeah you're right

00:42:12.640 um okay the second half of the episode is about some specific trends people are noticing

00:42:20.500 This question comes from Christine.

00:42:22.520 I had my first baby in 2020, which I generally don't recommend, but I loved the online community.

00:42:28.360 I had my second baby in 2024, and I was amazed at how toxic the online communities have since

00:42:34.320 become with the rise of TikTok momfluencers. I specifically remember in the months leading up

00:42:39.940 to giving birth, the moms in my due date group were all creating Canvas-style lists of demands

00:42:45.200 for people visiting their babies.

00:42:47.740 I understand having boundaries,

00:42:49.220 but some of the demands were insane. 1.00

00:42:52.040 Why do momfluencers normalize this? 1.00

00:42:54.300 It really keeps from creating a village.

00:42:56.940 Okay, so Melody linked me to all of these Etsy templates.

00:43:00.880 Okay, good.

00:43:01.240 Okay.

00:43:02.620 Have you seen them?

00:43:03.800 No.

00:43:05.440 They, it's like...

00:43:07.020 Let me put this in the chat.

00:43:08.360 Okay.

00:43:09.020 Because I have never seen anything like this in my life.

00:43:12.100 But at the same time, it makes total sense to me.

00:43:15.520 I think we are actually – this is something that is coming from the larger world of, like, boundaries and relationship speak that's filtering into the momfluencer world.

00:43:27.120 Yep.

00:43:27.680 And it reminds me of the episode that we did last year about therapy speak and how different types of language are actually being used as a sort of like cudgel to separate us from one another and to not do the work of being in community with one another.

00:43:47.240 but okay you see these yeah um basically they're in cutesy canva font which is like the new uh

00:43:57.020 live laugh love font is like yep stuff that's like very aesthetically pleasing in this way

00:44:02.720 there's a little bit of live laugh love font going on but yeah but it's like thank you for

00:44:09.240 being part of our village like a gentle postpartum boundaries for friends and family

00:44:14.040 about like please text before stopping by so we can make sure it's a good time short visits are

00:44:20.260 appreciated while we adjust to life with a newborn if you have been sick or around people who have

00:44:24.660 been sick we ask that you visit another time we may need to reschedule please wash or sanitize

00:44:30.100 your hands like wow this is so fascinating i have so many thoughts so so one thing that it's

00:44:41.380 preventing is having IRL like communication with your loved ones. Like this feels so

00:44:49.540 cold. I'm just going to email my mother-in-law this like. So that's the one thing. But the other

00:44:59.240 thing I see is that new moms are really overwhelmed and fried, you know, in the postpartum 0.99

00:45:06.320 period. And I think there is value in thinking about this stuff before you have your baby.

00:45:13.020 Yeah. Yeah. Like for sure. So like on the one hand, I like that these things are being considered

00:45:18.840 in a mainstream way. Um, but just talk to someone. Right. It doesn't need to be branded.

00:45:27.580 No. And I think like you bring up the mother-in-law and I think oftentimes this is something

00:45:33.020 that I've seen moms really struggle with with mother-in-laws in particular because you don't

00:45:36.740 have the same relationship as with your own parents, let's say. But what is the unspoken

00:45:44.320 text here is that your male partner is not communicating with his parents and is not

00:45:51.400 doing the work. So here is how you as a mom take on more of the work.

00:45:56.280 Mm-hmm. Yeah. Like, whereas I think having, like, going over this little bullet point with your partner prior to the baby arriving would be, like, a really useful exercise. 1.00

00:46:08.740 Right. And then your partner having clear conversations with his parents.

00:46:12.700 Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. For sure.

00:46:15.360 And, like, being kind of your bouncer.

00:46:18.700 Yes. Exactly.

00:46:20.540 not I I think sometimes like because it can be hard to be like no mom it's not a good time to

00:46:27.620 visit right now or whatever god yeah yeah yeah um but then with friends too like most of the

00:46:33.080 friends that I know like are very much like yeah tell us when to come over like let's figure out

00:46:37.360 together totally you don't need to send them a card like it's like a calling card

00:46:41.460 you just slip it under the door when someone tries to like drop off a casserole

00:46:47.420 but it does also i think speak to this idea that you somehow need to like optimize everything 0.66

00:46:58.540 your first three months like if the baby gets waking up from a nap the day is fucked and like

00:47:04.560 you're never gonna get that day back again and i right i know what what happens when you break 0.77

00:47:10.080 like you've worked so hard to get the baby to sleep and then it gets woken up again but also 0.75

00:47:14.840 then maybe someone's coming to visit who's gonna like do all your freaking dishes for you right

00:47:19.120 right totally or like talk to you about life outside of your baby cocoon yeah yeah and that

00:47:27.500 the incredible all focus like just everything and I think this is especially true of people with

00:47:32.600 having their first kid everything goes inward yes yes yes yes it's only about like baby baby baby

00:47:40.060 baby, like with blinkers on, this is a response to or a way to facilitate that even further.

00:47:48.960 Yeah. My mind is sort of blown right now. I don't think I've really thought about the fact that

00:47:55.420 it is the blinkers, baby, baby, baby, baby, that I truly think triggers so many women's

00:48:02.840 postpartum, whatever it is, because that is what makes you feel unrecognizable to yourself. 0.95

00:48:09.420 Yep. Like, these are my only interests. This is my every waking moment now. Like, I really think that's a huge part of the problem.

00:48:18.760 And if something goes wrong with baby, baby, baby, then everything is.

00:48:21.720 Yes. The pressure. Yes. Yeah. Right.

00:48:24.200 Just intensifies the pressure. And like, to be clear, neither one of us are trying to discount how incredibly intense that period is.

00:48:31.920 but when you only, when you like really separate yourself from the world by using this sort of

00:48:38.380 thing. And like, if I got a card like that, that wouldn't make me want to go visit. That would make

00:48:43.500 me think that I'm going to somehow break a boundary that I didn't even know existed.

00:48:47.340 Exactly. And so you're pushing people away instead of actually inviting them in

00:48:51.420 with these boundaries. Yep. Okay. Do you think that it's gotten more intense in the last four

00:48:57.600 years? So I think her timeline is so interesting because she said she had her first kid in 2020,

00:49:03.380 which was, of course, the height of COVID. And I think motherhood online was in many ways

00:49:11.540 much gentler and much more accepting of nuance then because there was this unspoken understanding

00:49:19.220 that we're all going through something that's really, really, really challenging. And some of

00:49:24.480 us are suffering more than others, but we're all struggling. And so I think there was way

00:49:30.560 less of an appetite for the super, super optimized version of motherhood and way more acceptance of

00:49:39.280 we're all just doing the best we can. And we were having so many, in many ways, new conversations

00:49:44.700 about all of the ways that capitalism relies on mothers' unpaid labor to keep going. So I think 0.94

00:49:51.940 it was just a very different time yeah I think so and I think like everything is so intense right

00:49:59.780 now yeah with everything in the world and how everyone feels like just this this humming

00:50:08.620 background noise of catastrophe yeah of course it would also filter into the way that people

00:50:14.720 are behaving in mom groups online so right and I think it would also prompt people to go inward

00:50:21.540 and, you know, believe in the illusion that if I can just control what I can control,

00:50:27.220 everything outside of me will melt away and everything will be fine.

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00:54:11.680 Okay, this next trend comes in a question from Amy. I get served a lot of Instagram content

00:54:17.240 suggesting physical or occupational therapies or exercises you should be doing with your kids,

00:54:22.680 especially babies. This also includes suggested products that are more or less bad for your kids.

00:54:29.820 There is also a large segment of this type of content around the alleged dangers of mouth

00:54:34.420 breathing and the need for early intervention. A lot of this is presented as quote hidden

00:54:40.500 quote problems that you should be looking out for or anticipating as a parent. Some, emphasis on

00:54:47.140 some seems helpful especially as medical and therapeutic access is harder and harder to

00:54:52.980 achieve but a lot of it feels like hypochondria and mom shaming i think this must have come out

00:54:59.700 of the pandemic but as a new mom it is crazy making any more lucid thoughts on the origin of

00:55:06.160 this so do you know what she's talking about here yeah i just pulled somebody up um she became

00:55:15.920 briefly she went briefly viral god at least five years ago she put out this like granola-y cookbook

00:55:23.800 and apparently there were toxic foraged mushrooms in the cookbook so her name is uh jonna i guess

00:55:33.160 it's j-o-h-n-n-a but she's on instagram fox meets bear um i love how i don't even think

00:55:43.000 that any of the words coming out of my mouth

00:55:46.280 are ludicrous. 0.96

00:55:48.860 Okay, go ahead. 0.91

00:55:51.820 So she's like,

00:55:53.820 she's Rudy Jude-esque 0.68

00:55:55.680 in terms of like her aesthetic.

00:55:59.260 We should say Rudy Jude is like,

00:56:01.020 in my mind, 1.00

00:56:01.660 she's like Maha-coated,

00:56:03.120 very cool girl.

00:56:04.660 Like we live in like a very rudimentary cabin

00:56:06.880 and like sew our own clothes,

00:56:08.820 but I'm also beautiful.

00:56:10.220 Yes.

00:56:10.920 Yeah.

00:56:11.020 um but i i don't remember what this product was very recently she affiliate linked to a product

00:56:20.940 for kids it was some sort of cleanse drops or like it was she was referring to it as spring

00:56:28.380 cleaning your kids no so i don't know if it was like microbiome stuff or like gut health stuff

00:56:36.040 but it was like i don't know like 36 for these little droppers of i don't know what so i think

00:56:44.260 this fits in that category and well and this is like this is all part of this larger maha galaxy

00:56:51.800 of you don't know what is actually in your vaccines red dye is everywhere you're you are

00:57:02.300 like dooming your kids to this lifetime of like whatever by these choices that you are making

00:57:08.840 right now right right and appealing as you said earlier to moms who are feeling very out of

00:57:16.400 control to a tremendous amount of distrust in public health like right that is the target and

00:57:22.800 that is who they are hitting yep for sure it's this promise that you can avoid mainstream medicine

00:57:31.980 um you know if your kids are eating the right thing if they're barefoot outside yeah yeah yeah

00:57:39.260 like all of the things it's this like uh idealization of low intervention almost there's

00:57:49.140 this like real romanticizing of if you just live correctly you won't need all the nasty

00:57:57.300 you know scare quotes things coming in yeah and i think like all of this stuff there's a spectrum

00:58:03.860 right so like on one end is like let your kids run naked outside and like naturally potty train

00:58:09.140 and everything's going to be great without any understanding of like who has access to those

00:58:14.340 spaces right uh and what like who is allowed to let their kids run wild and not be reported to

00:58:19.700 100 percent uh and then on the other end is i think the ones that are appealing to a much more

00:58:25.540 like mainstream sort of mom that's like you didn't know about mouth breathing right like these are

00:58:32.480 people who still go to pediatricians you know yes yes but are trying to say like can you believe

00:58:38.540 like here's something that you didn't know about that you should absolutely stop right now right

00:58:42.540 and that i think that's what amy i think is pointing to a little bit more is stuff that

00:58:46.960 doesn't like code immediately as maha right but it's still like concern trolling almost yeah and

00:58:54.560 I think that might almost be more insidious in a way to more people. Yeah. Because there's this

00:59:02.100 idea that there's a bottomless well of parenting knowledge. Yes. You know what I mean? And you

00:59:09.960 never hit the bottom. Right. And it's like, oh, cool. This thing is also bad for us that I've

00:59:15.480 been doing my entire life. It's every other day. There's something that you've been doing that has

00:59:21.260 been proven to be bad for you. And so I just think that type of thing for moms in particular can be

00:59:27.720 so dangerous and icky and set up to fail. And all of it seems to really just be undercutting

00:59:35.600 any sense of intuition, right? Like there is no,

00:59:42.160 even though a lot of Maha stuff is like, trust your gut. Yeah. Yeah. But it actually is saying,

00:59:47.600 don't trust your gut because my gut because there's things that we have internalized like

00:59:56.080 going to the doctor is good vaccines help keep everyone safe that or even just like I grew up

01:00:02.760 with this and I turned out okay right I watched television right I mouth breathed I am such a

01:00:11.600 mouth breather like i can't don't even get me started uh and i turned out okay but we're we're

01:00:17.400 taught to not think about those things and to distrust that feeling and that knowledge and

01:00:22.540 the wisdom really right yeah it's like yeah we've eaten oreos and we live to die another day like

01:00:29.160 but like i'm sure there's a momfluencer out there talking about why oreos are going to kill your

01:00:34.440 kids yeah lard can you believe it right right okay last question comes from madeline who wants

01:00:41.920 help decoding a certain influencer recently eve o schaub has been showing up on my facebook reels

01:00:48.940 with her i'm growing a dress series she's growing harvesting spinning weaving and sewing flax into

01:00:57.300 linen for a dress. I cannot culturally pinpoint her at all. She only wears handmade dresses,

01:01:05.440 although recently I've seen her in jeans like once or twice, and does old-fashioned home things, 0.92

01:01:12.120 tradwife flag, but she's super quirky and not beige at all. Is she the manic pixie dream girl 0.80

01:01:20.160 of trad wife s content creators i checked her bio and saw she's the author of a year with no series

01:01:28.380 no sugar no garbage no clutter what's her deal have i finally been caught in the trad wife web

01:01:34.900 by the manic pixie dream girl of them all this question made me laugh so hard it's so good 1.00

01:01:43.440 okay so uh eve ogden schwab yeah i'm looking at her she has uh she has red unruly hair 0.91

01:01:53.920 it's giving miss frizzle yeah it's giving a little miss frizzle she just looks like 1.00

01:01:59.680 a librarian down the street that would be jolly very jolly yes like a little bit of

01:02:05.920 miss frizzle there yeah very jolly like doesn't seem to be precious or anything about anything

01:02:12.400 and i've seen all these growing address things what is your feeling here

01:02:16.900 um i mean i spent some time on this account looking i love the term uh trad wife flag

01:02:24.360 um but i feel i'm i'm not getting trad wife i'm getting like really intense crafter like

01:02:33.500 has a big ravelry presence you know what i mean i'm getting like dirty hippie from eugene oregon 0.90

01:02:40.020 who now is on instagram and that's the thing about all of these dirty hippies they and i say this 0.89

01:02:46.680 like so affectionately when i say the term dirty totally right um we're talking about people who 0.89

01:02:51.600 would come to the saturday market and like sell you kind of weird crafts right and like they made

01:02:56.560 enough to get by on that plus like maybe working at like the local health food store for a couple

01:03:02.660 of shifts a week yeah like that source of income is no longer sustainable they have to be online

01:03:07.860 And the way to succeed online is to pick up the same tactics that everyone else is using.

01:03:13.840 Yep.

01:03:14.700 Yeah.

01:03:15.420 I would be remiss if I didn't point out that Rudy Jude also grew her own flax a year or two ago.

01:03:21.420 I don't know what became of that particular flax, but it did happen.

01:03:25.860 Doesn't Rudy Jude, she has like the very stiff genes. 1.00

01:03:29.340 Yes. 1.00

01:03:30.100 Yes, yes, yes.

01:03:31.300 Like salvage, like very popular with a certain set of like.

01:03:35.960 Yes.

01:03:36.560 they're like part yes yes yes it's like part of the uniform yeah um and that is not the uniform 0.78

01:03:43.380 of this lady no this lady's wearing like witchy skirts um for sure and but you take the same

01:03:51.900 sort of dynamics and a lot of this is just like savvy marketing like yeah doing week 34 like and 0.95

01:03:59.560 and turning this into a project that is updated every week like yeah that's amazing or like even

01:04:05.060 the gimmick of like you're of no sugar you're of no clutter like those are ways to grow your

01:04:09.880 followership and so and also things that instagram and we talk about this you and i and other

01:04:16.640 newsletter creators like how instagram keeps changing their algorithms to preference different

01:04:22.380 things and trying to get you to use their different features and like everyone is being pressured to

01:04:27.500 create within the same mode yeah for sure and so you get some of that slippage of this seems

01:04:35.180 trad coded to me because yeah look the aesthetics are similar in some overarching ways right yeah

01:04:41.980 there's the spinning wheel yeah yeah yeah i always think of um sleeping beauty of course

01:04:47.300 um melody what do you get from this lady well i saw she's from vermont which yeah that's that

01:04:53.600 checks out i i don't know i don't know really anything about vermont other than the only people

01:04:58.340 i know from there like are pretty liberal so i also got the kind of hippie vibe yeah yeah no and

01:05:04.000 i used to live in vermont for a short while and like this is this is a vermont lady for sure

01:05:09.160 definitely um uh so okay we answered all these questions is there anything else that you like

01:05:17.020 any other accounts that you think people should be watching if they want to like keep thinking

01:05:21.900 about these ideas that are percolating in the larger mama sphere so i'm i'm following brooke

01:05:27.660 raybold now okay okay um so i i was gonna mention this earlier i forget what the question was but 1.00

01:05:35.040 lee tillman do you remember this whole controversy um she was lee from america she was like she made 0.99

01:05:44.640 smoothie bowls in the early 2010s. She was profiled by a bunch of places. And then she 0.96

01:05:51.400 was quote unquote canceled for selling really overpriced like health and wellness retreats

01:05:56.700 or something. But she came out with a memoir, which what was it called? Basically, it was like

01:06:04.020 an insider tale of my life as an influencer. Yeah. And then she became an anti-influencer

01:06:10.240 influencer and now she is recording her like conception journey and she's branding herself

01:06:21.660 as a motherhood and pregnancy expert without being pregnant or having kids which I find

01:06:28.280 fascinating what I mean she's she's just having all these experts on to talk about things she's

01:06:34.980 talking about her like what I eat preparing for baby again she's not pregnant yet but

01:06:40.060 preparing her body to get pregnant oh my gosh there are so many people that i know who follow

01:06:46.520 this lady i'm looking on instagram right now yeah yeah like and some of them are the people

01:06:51.760 that you would expect like who are clearly following out of like analysis yeah yeah yeah

01:06:56.920 some of them are like normies fascinating fascinating okay okay all right i'm following

01:07:05.000 we know cool cool so she comes to mind um you always tell me to follow ballerina farm's sister

01:07:11.680 because it's such a contrast it's it gives more clarity into like how ballerina farm erases the

01:07:19.300 seams as they were of the construction what's her name and uh micka micka taylor micka perry

01:07:27.580 micka perry i think m-i-c-k-a perry um i'm also keeping an eye on micka's daughter the one that

01:07:37.620 had her first baby when micka had her 11th baby uh-huh um because she fascinatingly is a family

01:07:45.520 and wellness counselor not a family uh family and couples counselor i think so that's just

01:07:53.320 really interesting um so i'm keeping an eye on her as well uh i think her name is annika austin

01:08:00.180 okay all right those are those are some great mom fluency and we'll put all the links to all

01:08:06.700 of these in the show notes so sarah can you stick around for the ask in anything part of the show

01:08:12.320 yeah i'd love to so this isn't really a mom influencer question but it's a larger mom question

01:08:18.120 involving midlife crises but as always this is the part of the show that is just for paid

01:08:23.540 subscribers so if you want it sign up at patreon.com slash culture study and get instant access to it

01:08:30.220 all right sarah where can people find you if they want to hear more from you we had you specifically

01:08:35.440 on because you have a new podcast oh right i keep forgetting about the podcast um okay so i write

01:08:43.640 about ballerina farm at all on my newsletter in pursuit of clean countertops which is on patreon

01:08:50.700 um and yeah my dear friend emily j smith who um is a novelist and a writer uh she and i started

01:08:59.860 a podcast called clean countertops and we look at ideals of womanhood and explore the many ways

01:09:06.060 that those ideals are bad um and it's it's really fun we it's very loose it's you know an excuse for

01:09:14.840 us to talk every week as much as anything else so it's really fun and yeah and if people like

01:09:20.520 this conversation they're gonna love the pod so yes really recommend all right thanks thank you

01:09:26.740 so much for joining me this was really the highlight of my week oh it was so fun

01:09:31.200 thanks for listening to the culture study podcast be sure to subscribe wherever you

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01:10:29.300 You

Culture Study Podcast - May 13, 2026

Checking In On The Momfluencers

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