00:01:47.760And also questions about the length of the school year and that sort of thing.
00:01:51.320And, you know, that question is pointing at so many different things.
00:01:55.340But I wonder if we can talk just to start about why is this the number one thing that comes to people's mind when we talk about a family friendly society?
00:02:06.420Like a fundamental time mismatch and it causes so many challenges.
00:02:09.900And it's interesting because there's like there's the historical answer, the long historical answer.
00:02:15.340Totally. I like this question because it also, I think, gets us to that fundamental disconnect that we have in America. So the short, like longest road glancer is that this is a vestige of the 19th century compulsory school laws and we had a more agrarian society and these kids need to get back to the farms and that we, you know, and some child development experts at the time didn't think kids should be in school for that long.
00:02:41.260So there are those reasons. And, you know, what I think is always interesting, though, and I like this question because it gives me the reason to talk about 1971, which is my favorite thing to talk about in child care. So I'm not going to give this sort of super long.
00:02:55.780You and every other child care historian.
00:03:02.820So in 1971, you have this bill called the Comprehensive Child Development Act, and it would have started to create a federally funded, locally run network of child care programs.
00:03:12.080And importantly, it also would have funded after school and summer care.
00:03:16.400This is really a time when, you know, we had huge changes going on in the economy.
00:03:22.240Women and mothers were flooding into the workforce because you couldn't really sustain a one income household anymore.
00:03:43.480And Richard Nixon at the moment, at that time, actually, was like hemming and hawing
00:03:46.740because he came into office talking about some family stuff.
00:03:49.200He's talking about like, you know, and so he shows up on his desk.
00:03:52.560And the story basically goes, at the time, he's getting a lot of pressure from the right wing
00:03:57.220because he was engaging with China and there was talk about a conservative primary, you know,
00:04:01.280in the next election and things like that. And basically, Pat Buchanan gets in his ear, right?
00:04:06.380Pat Buchanan, you know, convinces him to veto the thing. And he vetoes it in this exceptionally
00:04:12.820strong language, right? This exceptionally strong language, saying that to do this, in as many words
00:04:18.080as would be to commit the moral authority of the federal government over that of the family.
00:04:22.500And this would have created like a network of voluntary child care programs and funded after school and summer care.
00:04:28.480This isn't forcing anyone to do anything, but it gets in the water, right?
00:04:32.980This idea, and actually it's interesting.
00:04:35.280This bill comes up later, you know, in following years and you had this like flyer when the viral version of the 1970s saying that it was going to let kids unionize and sue their parents if their parents made them take out the trash or go to church.
00:05:07.500But as a result, all of the energy around things like creating a child care system, about creating a universal system of after school or before school care or summer care that could go around the school year and the school day, extending school day, that all went out the window.
00:05:24.120And we're still really, really fighting that legacy today of this idea that the government doesn't have any role to play in child care.
00:05:34.280Yeah, yeah. And even like the understanding which aligns with some of these like, you know, the government should get out of child care, like the understanding of funding as partisan. Right. When it was not previously. So this I want to tee up our first question first, like actual listener question, because it's going to allow us to talk about, I think, how some of like our understandings of what is actually family friendly are coded.
00:06:02.300So let's start from this question from Kim.
00:06:05.000I think the biggest disconnect with creating family-friendly societies is the definition
00:06:12.020For a set of people, usually from an explicit or quasi-religious place, specifically, of
00:06:17.060course, conservative Christian, this means jobs for men and no options for child care
00:06:21.880besides mom and maybe grandma or a small co-op of other moms.
00:06:25.980Whereas for others, it would mean robust parental leave, high-quality, accessible child care,0.93
00:06:30.460hybrid work options, generous sick leave policy, etc. How do we even begin to bridge that gap?
00:06:37.100I see this pop up so much, and I think people who maybe haven't lived in places where this
00:06:43.340ethos is very prominent might think of it as, I don't know, like satire almost. But there really
00:06:51.500is a strong strain that any policy that quote-unquote encourages mothers to be outside of
00:06:58.940the home is not actually family friendly, right? That it's a destructive force for the family. So0.61
00:07:05.560I wonder if you can like break down these two understandings of like, what kind of family
00:07:11.080policy directives are trying to protect or you see where I'm going here?
00:07:17.220I do see where you're going there. Yeah. It is such a good point. I think what's interesting
00:07:22.880underneath that, my question is always like, what are the values that are being asserted,
00:07:27.900And when you kind of unpack it, some of the values, this idea that like family is the cornerstone of society. And so we want to have strong families that are able to pass on values and traditions and stories to the next generation, essentially the socially social reproduction.
00:07:45.540and that when I have these conversations with people because I've as well and I've heard plenty
00:07:50.780of there are politicians that will say this unabashedly out loud right like I think that's
00:07:55.320what's underneath it is this idea that we if we if we do this if we are encouraging you know
00:08:01.340women outside of the home it's going to break down the family what I think is interesting is that when0.99
00:08:06.600you actually assert the idea that a good child care system can strengthen families it can make
00:08:13.820people really sit up straight because there's a way in which saying, look, if what you're getting
00:08:20.600at is the idea that every family should have the care that they need to be able to raise their
00:08:26.760kids the way that they want, like that, and that is a value statement. And I think most people
00:08:33.080agree with it. It leads you on interesting paths because then you have to ask that same person,
00:08:37.640right? Okay. Well, if you've got, you know, and I've, I've interviewed and done focus groups,
00:08:41.320like stay-at-home dads who were like, you know, we had this conversation. My wife and I were like,
00:08:44.620we really wanted someone home, you know, with the children to be able to, you know, have more
00:08:49.120touch points with them and to be able to raise them in the way that we thought was best. And
00:08:52.900I remember one dad told me, my wife looked at me, we were sitting on the porch and he said,
00:08:56.460it's not going to be me. So, right, this idea that like, okay, like we can have two things can
00:09:01.540be true. Like, yes, we need strong families. Yes, we need strong relationships. And yes,
00:09:05.380children need stable parents with good ability to be present. And what that's going to mean is in
00:09:13.480some cases, we're going to need to support stay-at-home parents. In some cases, that means
00:09:18.180that it's best for those kids to have both of their parents out doing something that they find
00:09:22.360meaningfully fulfilling and coming back at the end of the day, like charged up and ready to engage,
00:09:27.100right? And so where I find is challenging is this sort of question and where I think the argument
00:09:32.480on the far right kind of falls apart i'm like choice has to cut both ways well okay so the
00:09:38.280first thing i would say is that i think a lot of people on the far right do not actually believe
00:09:42.640in the libertarian ethos that everyone should have the right to raise their kids however they want
00:09:46.640because they think like queer parents should not have the right to yes raise their kids right like0.98
00:09:52.460they they pathologize single parenthood especially single parenthood by choice um and you know the0.95
00:09:59.720like the whole cloth ethos of like a family is everyone right it's like it's also grandparents
00:10:08.460and it's also like how do we take care of other people in our extended family like that falls
00:10:14.220apart it's so focused on the nuclear family that is straight and has two parents and one income
00:10:21.840and like but then they say like i should have the freedom to raise my kids however i want
00:10:28.400and not expose them to the propaganda of like say public schooling right yes so like that that's
00:10:34.980always my frustration like if we if we can get on board that like okay we should like people
00:10:40.260should be able to raise their kids in a way that they feel is fit so long as it's not breaking any
00:10:46.440laws um but they like for them like you said like this sword doesn't cut both ways like they
00:10:53.260for for them and theirs but not for us and ours yes and i think that's absolutely right i think
00:10:59.540in some ways we said that's an argument that we have to be able to win uh i do think there's this
00:11:04.900sort of way in which though ideas that they've asserted have gotten into a lot of the mainstream
00:11:12.320ideas and you know it's interesting i'll say like i have a very conservative like christian
00:11:17.120conservative family member who i talked about child care a fair amount and like their thing0.82
00:11:21.340is like, yes, I think it would be better if all mothers stayed home with their family. My wife0.97
00:11:26.720didn't, right? But then they're like, look, if you have a childcare idea or policy that is going to
00:11:33.360support stay-at-home parents and also offer these other options, I can basically reluctantly get
00:11:38.100on board with that. That's basically their conclusion. Well, and that's the thing. I think
00:11:41.800about how so many churches have what they call like mom's day out, where it's like a couple hours
00:11:47.640up dacre and like that's okay right like that is sanctioned for you to have part-time child care
00:11:53.500it's just that you can't like have a full-time job and it also just leads me to all of this
00:11:58.640research about like so many people do want to provide elder care say because this is going to
00:12:04.660be something that's part of our conversation as we're moving forward about how a family-friendly
00:12:08.160society is actually one that's also friendly to elder care but they don't want to be the only
00:12:13.440person doing it yeah right yeah and this applies to i think all kinds of care like if you're caring
00:12:19.540for a disabled partner if you are caring for kids you just don't want to be the only person doing it
00:12:27.180all of the time right like what is the escape valve a lot of people want to do that work but
00:12:31.740they just need help yeah and that's what we don't provide oh that's right it's why you know and i
00:12:36.920argue a lot we need to assert care as a right like we need to assume rights language and we need to
00:12:42.040challenge anyone to say why shouldn't that be because if it is just this nice to have thing or
00:12:47.560this pay-to-play system and if you happen to be wealthy congratulations you can hire to your point
00:12:52.160right you can hire help totally because you know who we don't look down on is the wealthy people
00:12:57.160who are all hiring nannies to raise their kids for them right like they don't get any approbation
00:13:01.760from us um so i think that's which is so funny right like i think that like it's liberals actually
00:13:36.200to be pluralistic right that's the other thing about to your point
00:13:38.260about other care too, like I think as someone who is avowedly on the left, right, like we get into
00:13:43.300trouble when we actually sort of say we only want in child care, like licensed, you know, child care
00:13:50.120centers, we only want pre-K. We don't actually want to support family members or grandparents or
00:13:54.800stay-at-home parents. Like I think we do have a tendency sometimes to look down on that as opposed
00:13:59.680to saying, look, it's all, it's all care. It's all happening. It should all be supported. Children
00:14:04.560can develop healthily in any of those settings, and we need a system that supports it. And it's
00:14:09.500not going to look exactly the same, because the way you support a grandparent, the way you support
00:14:12.040a stay-in-law parent, and the way you support a child care center are necessarily going to look
00:14:15.300different. It's going to cost different amounts of money. But can we have a system where everyone
00:14:19.700can get the care that they want and need? That would be a huge, you know, advance.
00:14:24.440Okay, so let's tease up our next question, which I think we'll get to a fundamental problem. This
00:14:28.620comes from Carrie. We don't have to invent all that many policies or practices in this area if1.00
00:14:33.820we don't want to. There are a lot of models we could quickly adapt with a lot of bang for our
00:14:39.020buck. When you fly into the airport in Lisbon, there are family-only lines so parents don't
00:14:44.500have to hold their toddlers on their hips for three hours in line for passport control.
00:14:49.520I'm looking at you, Newark Airport. Restaurants in many cities in Europe have play areas for kids,
00:14:55.080so there's something for them to do while you wait for the meal. So many places abroad are
00:14:59.200built with strollers and wheelchairs in mind. Surely planners and policymakers travel too.
00:15:05.020And yet in the U.S. we just don't do this. It seems deliberate. My question is thus less how
00:15:12.600we can make our society more family friendly, but why don't we? I have theories about cultural
00:15:18.440preferences for fairness and plain old misogyny, but I shouldn't answer my own question.
00:15:23.960i love i love that carrie starts to answer her own question uh you have done so much work
00:15:33.420closely studying the way that family-friendly policy works in other nations so that's part of
00:15:39.840why i wanted to to have you answer this question because like you have show like i have read your
00:15:44.380work on all of these different ways things that we could adopt so why don't we yeah oh it's such1.00
00:15:51.000a good question i mean i think some look carrie's obviously there obviously is misogyny there
00:15:55.020obviously is so some of that that's going on no doubt i think part of it quite honestly is we
00:16:01.060there's not that much of a constituency for it what i mean by that i don't mean that there
00:16:05.960aren't constituent parents but like when's the last time that a parent called up a congressperson0.53
00:16:13.060or a city council person and said look like the stroller infrastructure in this city sucks
00:16:18.640or you know we need to have airport like family lanes like it's just not a there's not been a
00:16:24.100really an organized constituency i actually think it's a really potentially fruitful area and
00:16:28.840interestingly this is a place where there could be some bipartisanship and i use that word with
00:16:33.040full awareness of the moment that we are in um you know there's a conservative thinker who i
00:16:39.040am friendly with the name patrick brown he's written about these ideas of like look there
00:16:43.120should be playgrounds at every rest stop on every highway in america right like that's like a proper
00:16:48.080use of public funds. And I think there's actually some sort of strange bedfellows that could be
00:16:52.520had around that. But you're right. What it comes down to is, and my colleague, I work with Joe
00:16:58.120Waters, talks a lot about this, is what's the ethic sort of within a culture about where family
00:17:03.940is placed? So in Italy, it's literally in the Italian constitution that one of the purposes
00:17:12.600of the italian government is to support healthy family life and so yeah like that like what that
00:17:19.440says you know that's not a policy but that is a statement of values that you can then go down to
00:17:24.720yeah we're going to have these things that are family friendly but you're right absolutely why
00:17:28.060don't i mean there are so many things and we could go down the list of the family line lanes in the
00:17:33.540airport the lack of stroller infrastructure the the fact that public pools in most places now have
00:17:39.460incredibly short hours and, you know, short years that they're open. I mean, we could go down the
00:17:44.820list. There are so many things, and these aren't actually giant P-paws. Like, fixing child care
00:17:51.400will cost hundreds of billions of dollars. Fixing, like, airport lanes and, you know, stroller
00:17:57.320infrastructure and splash pads, like, that's not going to break the bank, but it does require
00:18:02.280becoming a priority. And in public policy, everything is always fighting for, you know,
00:18:06.560attention and energy and funds within a finite circle and so part of the question is how do we
00:18:13.880get parents organized around this and you know if they're not even organized right now writ large
00:18:18.360around bigger things like child care right well and it also it strikes me that so much of this
00:18:26.720has now been like shunted onto the private sphere or onto like the corporate yes you know like in
00:18:31.860in airports like the fact that the pumping rooms were like at least until recently i haven't seen
00:18:38.440them recently but um you know it was like a company that paid to have like pumping rooms
00:18:44.540that were like little i don't know like a size of a box that you could go into but it was like
00:18:51.660advertising for this company so of course the airport and like the infrastructure of the
00:18:56.560airport was not paying to actually construct a place where moms could pump it was like well0.96
00:19:00.980let's have the private like private sphere take care of this and we know that that's not0.99
00:19:06.480it doesn't go well or even like i'm thinking of regulations too that have just like disincentivized
00:19:13.860the development of any sort of third spaces or third public spaces where you don't have to buy
00:19:18.740something in order to be there yeah there's also like this for this proliferation of sort of places
00:19:23.040also that aren't even culturally aren't even friendly towards kids they don't in the restaurants
00:19:26.600or the breweries are like no kids allowed like that in a way we were becoming more hostile to
00:19:31.560the idea of families with young children um or families with children generally and that is i
00:19:36.200think uh you know that's a real challenge and we could it's a choice in a lot of ways and but some
00:19:43.220of it comes again from the top down of when lawmakers are making a policy for example like
00:19:49.460there have been proposals made throughout from both parties across time around there should be
00:19:54.540a family impact lens to that right a family impact statement you know what is this going to mean for
00:20:00.280families if we do that and some of that can be weaponized and we have to be really careful about
00:20:03.580it i mean parents rights has been weaponized against uh you know against lgbtq people i mean
00:20:10.500they're that language can be dangerous but as an idea of we need to think about policy making with
00:20:18.240families in the center. And interestingly, we really don't think about families as a unit very
00:20:25.180much in policymaking. We often think about individuals, that the parent is the worker,
00:20:29.960the child. As the child, we don't often think of what's best for families. And so the stuff
00:20:35.280ends up falling from the wayside. I think in some cases it's benign neglect. In some cases,
00:20:39.780malign neglect. But I don't know that there's necessarily hungress people sitting around being
00:20:44.900Like, you know what we're going to do is, like, make the airport terrible for families with kids.
00:20:51.960No, but it's also like, and this gets to, like, you know, Protestant individualist work ethic.
00:20:57.900Like, if you're going to go on vacation, you better suffer.
00:21:02.360Or just, like, the idea that something, anything that makes your life easier in some way, especially if the state is doing it, like, that's waste.
00:23:45.840One thing that I didn't realize before I got a Blissey pillowcase was that a huge cause of that particular type of bedhead is actually what kind of pillowcase that you're sleeping on.
00:23:56.200cotton and satin cause frizz and then oh they also cause those like embarrassing sleep creases
00:24:02.660where like you look like you just smashed your face into a pillow guess what you don't get that
00:24:08.900with a blissey i was traveling a couple of weeks ago so i was away from my blissey pillowcase
00:24:14.220and i kid you not one day my sleep creases lasted until like three o'clock in the afternoon
00:24:22.020every time that I like went to the bathroom to wash my hands or whatever I was like why is this
00:24:27.020still happening they make me feel like I'm a two-year-old who just got up from a nap and I'm
00:24:31.880like still cranky you know what I mean like I need a string cheese like force-fed to me that's
00:24:36.700if I look in the mirror that's what they make me feel like yes again you don't get that if you take
00:24:42.160a nap with a blissy if you sleep at night with a blissy blissy pillowcases are silk not satin
00:24:48.900there's a real difference silk is natural cooling gentler on skin and hair and it also helps reduce
00:24:55.320fine lines wrinkles and sleep creases like what we're talking about and reduces breakouts which
00:25:00.140somehow even at age 44 i still have why did no one tell me this right now because you're a listener
00:25:05.900blissy is offering 60 nights risk-free plus an additional 30 off when you shop at blissy.com
00:25:12.140slash culture pod. That's B-L-I-S-S-Y dot com slash culture pod and use code culture pod
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00:25:29.100Okay, so I promised so many listeners that we would not just talk about like parents of little
00:25:34.680kids in this episode. So we have a question that's going to tee us up to be much more expansive here.
00:25:39.620I just hear from Marissa. How can a truly family-friendly community recognize and make
00:25:45.000space for single, childless people? Or, better yet, make single, child-free life more possible
00:25:51.120and even encouraged as a role that adds value to a community? Single people are often entire
00:25:56.140families in and of ourselves, playing a lot of different roles at once every single day.
00:26:00.720And while I love being anti-Marissa to the kids in my life, I'm actually anti-Marissa a pretty
00:26:04.820small percentage of the time it is often too easy to just fill the anti-roll and nothing else to
00:26:10.340kids friends and family alike are there specific ways a community can make folks who are opting
00:26:15.440out of traditional families feel visible and valuable as simply themselves so what does this
00:26:22.160spark in you it's a really good question and it really is something that bothers me about the
00:26:29.180family formation birth rate discourse right and this idea that i i wrote in an op-ed in opposition
00:26:34.700to this one so i think tank that was calling these people kinless i'm like they're not kinless like
00:26:39.460they're not like without yes they're not without families like right like they have for you know
00:26:44.420they're filling these important roles and then humanity is a great deal of great debt of gratitude
00:26:50.520to many many many people who who ended up not having being married or or having kids i so i
00:26:56.080think part of it is like we need to be able to have this conversation which is not going anywhere
00:27:01.640about the declining birth rate without denigrating people who don't have kids and part of it is
00:27:07.580literally what we're doing right now i think saying that out loud and saying it loudly and
00:27:11.160over and over and over again um no and then i think there's a question of like can communities
00:27:15.220like i don't have like a list of things that the community could do but if you think about the way
00:27:20.460that we have, you know, grandparents day at school, right? Like, or grand, like grand friends
00:27:25.720day, right? Can we have like, you know, on uncle day, can we have ways that we are elevating,
00:27:32.060you know, these individuals, but again, not just because of their, their relationship to kids,
00:27:36.060but also ways to celebrate them in and of themselves. If we have parents night out,
00:27:41.080you know, is there a way to do more events that aren't just focused on parents? I think having
00:27:45.220both and is probably the way forward um and again the more that we can just say that out loud
00:27:52.620the better so i don't have a magic wand on that one but i'm glad it was asked because i do i am
00:27:57.800getting concerned that the discourse is is heading in a nasty direction as a person without kids i
00:28:04.660have so many thoughts on this because like there are so many spaces when like i feel awkward or
00:28:10.540not particularly welcome one of them goes back to like the point that we made earlier
00:28:15.080about how a lot of spaces now have become either child-free or conversely only for kids so i think
00:28:22.300about like i don't know these spaces that are like now you like jump at the walls and there's
00:28:28.540like like foam all over the place like there's you know what they're like some of it's trampolines
00:28:33.960and like it is a stimulation overload but if you're there without like children under your0.89
00:28:40.880direct supervision you're a freaking weirdo right so like i went with some friends with my friend's
00:28:46.440kids and it's like but where's your kid and like i played more than any of the other parents0.96
00:28:51.100but still it's like this interesting kind of interloper thing one thing that i appreciate
00:28:56.800that the school does on my island is like oftentimes for things like graduation or
00:29:02.440plays or that sort of thing they make a very explicit call that everyone on the island is
00:29:08.080welcome to come and what that does is that anyone who has an investment in the school
00:29:12.720which is everyone because like it is at the center of our island in so many different ways lots of
00:29:18.440people have either gone there themselves or had kids who went there or volunteered there or taught
00:29:22.320there like you have people who are there who are not just parents including me and my partner
00:29:28.620one other thing before I get into the policy stuff like I uh earlier this year one of my
00:29:35.140friends kids who I love she had to do a report on an adult in her life for school every other person
00:29:42.280in the class did a family member but she did her report on me so she interviewed me and like got
00:29:49.800pictures of me when I was a kid and like all of this stuff it was really special to me but what
00:29:54.720imagine if the teacher had said you need to do this on an adult in your life who isn't related
00:30:01.180to you oh you know what i mean like so many adults would be so honored yes to be asked to do that
00:30:08.080and all it takes is just that one little that one little switch in like the curriculum um so that
00:30:14.620sort of thing or like bring bring an adult you're not related to school and if that's something that
00:30:20.060becomes a norm i know that that sounds weird but if that becomes a norm uh like it's something that
00:30:26.640parents are more conscious about cultivating so that their kid doesn't get to third grade and
00:30:30.760have no adult in their life who isn't a parent yeah right yeah um and then the policy stuff that
00:30:36.460i was just mentioning it's just like we just like the way that the suburbs and the and urban centers
00:30:42.820like how they select for people who do or do not have an additional need for a bedroom right um
00:30:49.820um or like how difficult it is in an urban area to have kids and to not have a car yeah like
00:30:56.100these all interlock oh yeah and we could live i think in in closer community with people with
00:31:02.120different family situations because to not have kids is all you're still a family you're a family
00:31:07.000unit you're just a family unit of one that would just be so much easier okay our next question
00:31:13.320about family friendly and who benefits from that this comes from maggie how would a family friendly
00:31:19.760society also be better for folks outside of the family structure? Workplaces that make space for0.93
00:31:25.240care work are needed for parents, but also child-free folks who are caring for aging parents
00:31:30.080or ill partners. Maybe less obviously, if public spaces were truly accessible to parents,
00:31:36.480would this allow parents not to retreat into the nuclear family, leading to both parents and
00:31:41.400child-free folks retaining the friendship slash community that many lose when they or their
00:31:46.680friends become parents yeah what's your answer here i mean yes so i think look care care has
00:31:54.880investing in care and family family societies has a strong curb cut effect on curb cut effect is
00:32:00.580uh this idea right that when you know originally curbs the curb cuts were poured by disability
00:32:06.720advocates uh because they needed somewhere for people in wheelchairs to be able to get across
00:32:10.140the street uh they are now used by everyone right like um this is so that's the idea huge effects
00:32:15.860right cyclists strollers exactly delivering people universal design right millions of people
00:32:21.580use use curb cuts every day super helpful that was not originally where they were put in so
00:32:26.140you can think about some of these family friendly uh adjustments that can be made and the way that
00:32:32.820they could benefit so one example i think is interesting is we think about so the school
00:32:37.120street movement right this idea of let's make schools our streets around schools and in some
00:32:41.960cases child care programs uh either car free or like we have like we have to intentionally we're
00:32:47.980lowering the speed cars can go or we're you know restricting idling of cars in some cases uh places
00:32:55.280like paris is actually completely pedestrianized like tons of their streets around around schools
00:32:59.980that's super helpful for parents that's super helpful for non-parents too right making uh wide
00:33:05.540sidewalks you know cleaning up the air making accessible you know vibrant art installations
00:33:12.420all of these things can be really good for families they're also going to help people
00:33:17.540who don't have kids because in a lot of ways um i heard once described i think it was the former
00:33:23.440mayor of bogota colombia who once described children as an indicator species indicator
00:33:28.520species being right in biology the idea of like the health of this species is telling you what's
00:33:33.200going on in the rest of the ecosystem and his point was if things are going well by the children
00:33:38.380and by the families that means things are going to be going well by everyone else if things aren't
00:33:43.000going well then right vice versa so i really think actually that's part of the challenge
00:33:47.480is that when we sort of segment out this is like just something that's about care this is just
00:33:52.960something that's about kids doesn't have to do with the rest of society actually makes it harder
00:33:56.720to develop those society that we want the neighborhoods that we want because you're
00:34:01.920also artificially restricting the constituency in that way. It's saying everyone has an interest in
00:34:06.740this. And I think the elder care point, which I think we're going to talk about more, is so
00:34:10.800important too, particularly in our aging society. We have got to put structures in place that are
00:34:17.340more conducive to that. And it's going to help everyone. And that can look like multi-generational
00:34:22.480housing. That can look like, I've seen more and more people are co-locating elder care services
00:34:27.420and childcare services, which is super cute and also like super helpful, right? Like that makes
00:34:31.700all the sense in the world. Will you explain that for people who aren't familiar? It's really cool.
00:34:36.540Yeah. So basically like you'll have one building, right? And on one wing of that building is a
00:34:40.480childcare center. And on the other wing of that building is on a senior center essentially. And
00:34:45.360so, but they'll mix, right? They'll send the kids, you know, so you'll have the toddlers go over and
00:34:49.900they'll do like a story time with the elderly people. And it's really adorable and also creates
00:34:56.840right like these intergenerational connections it's good for the seniors but then it also means
00:35:00.740that when family members are coming to visit again like they're interacting with with both
00:35:05.580generations so those sorts of things i think can really um and it's again it's what does it signal
00:35:11.080as well like it signals that we're not segmenting out kids go over there seniors go over there right
00:35:15.680like we're bringing everyone together um to sort of restore these ties that bind yeah and this is
00:35:22.820kind of counter to the the idea of like oh we need more family-friendly places like obviously
00:35:28.400of course i want more places where i can hang out with my friends in public spaces but also
00:35:32.860more robust child care would mean that i would get to hang out with my friends without their kids
00:35:37.820a lot more because right now it's just like it's so unaffordable and inaccessible that those spaces
00:35:44.880to not hang out with kids are also incredibly difficult to come by and sometimes you do want
00:35:50.620to hang out without your kids that's the thing like you don't always kids don't always have to
00:35:54.120be there no that's absolutely right and how do we marshal community resources to that too right like
00:35:58.300you know if we have i always joke that we have the those you know first friday art walks like a lot
00:36:02.880of communities have right like what if we did you know third thursday's care night right and
00:36:06.760everyone's going to come out we're going to provide you know centralized places of care and
00:36:10.900we're going to all go out and you know everyone's going to have time to to engage like there are
00:36:15.680lots of creative ways to do this i've read about a few restaurants that have started to basically
00:36:19.640have like a temporary sort of like child care kind of associated like on next door or above
00:36:26.340them in like the second floor of the restaurant. And there are lots of ways to do this because
00:36:30.800you're right. Like part of society is going to need time with the kids. You also need time
00:36:36.140without the kids, whether or not you have kids. Yeah. The next question is about something that
00:36:42.600I think about a ton, which is how oftentimes not only is a lot of this discourse focused on like
00:36:47.980people with two parents who have kids. It's focused specifically on like, how can we make
00:36:53.440the mom's lives easier? So this next question comes from Kelly, and Melody's going to read it.
00:37:00.080How can we keep queer parents in the mix of these conversations about family-friendly society,
00:37:05.740especially baby-friendly society? I'm a heterosexual new mom, and I've become very
00:37:10.600aware of the support available to me that isn't available to my husband's boss, who is a gay man
00:37:16.240with an adopted daughter the same age as my son. I'm all for girl power or mom power, but why are
00:37:21.960parenting classes so femme coded? If it isn't specifically about post-birth recovery, why are0.82
00:37:27.980baby-friendly workout classes all for moms? My husband also wants to be an informed, involved
00:37:33.180parent, but he isn't invited into these spaces the way that I am. I even live in a liberal city
00:37:37.980and I've been disappointed at how traditional gender rolesy things are. Yeah. Okay. So this0.99
00:37:44.500is a chance for you to talk about what it's like to be a man in these spaces like because you are0.96
00:37:48.720able to observe it from that place like what have you noticed yeah uh it is not the she's right
00:37:55.260right these places are not the most welcoming for for men and you know even i remember my kids
00:38:02.140younger and take them to the playground and like i've always felt like a weird pressure to somehow
00:38:06.380assert the fact that like they were my kids and i was here with kids right like um i don't think
00:38:12.340that my general sense of talking to my wife is it's not the sense that most women have. So that's
00:38:18.120absolutely true. It's also, I think, sometimes harder to find that community as men. The sort
00:38:27.300of dad chat is not quite as robust, I think, as the mom chat and things like that. What's
00:38:32.880interesting is I think we're in this transitional moment where we haven't quite gotten there yet.
00:38:37.660So, for example, at this point, one in five stay-at-home parents is a father, which is way more than it used to be, right?
00:38:45.020It also means that four in five stay-at-home parents are still women.
00:38:48.260So that's – but with that number of dads, there's sort of this need.
00:38:53.920But when you talk to them, like a lot of times there is a sense of isolation, a sense of I don't have these spaces that are welcoming to me.
00:38:59.740Actually, they look askance at me if I show up in these spaces.
00:39:02.460So I think we need to continue as we develop these offerings, finding ways to intentionally let men in.
00:39:14.980It is in Denmark, I believe, that is reading about – they have a term for it.
00:39:18.240It basically translates to latte dads.
00:39:20.680But it's all the – you know, it's this idea of like the dads will go out and they'll meet up and they'll get – like it's a trope because there are so many of them because – and this is the other thing we haven't talked about yet.
00:39:30.440paternity leave exactly yes like non-birth parent leave because that i think is a better term here
00:39:38.600to describe like all of the different roles that because this could be adoptive parents too right
00:39:43.620like so what does leave look like when you have not given physical birth and i love that you bring
00:39:49.520up the latte dads because i have such a vivid picture in my mind i was in bergen norway i was
00:39:55.580like walking past the museum and i saw two dads like you know well-dressed norwegian dads
00:40:03.120with two strollers with babies in them who were between the ages of one and two which from my
00:40:09.220understanding in norwegian society and a lot of scandinavian societies usually the man takes the
00:40:13.620second kind of end of the the parental leave and they were just like hanging out being guys
00:40:19.680with their babies like they were just you know like they were walking like past the museum with
00:40:25.000like, I think they had coffees, like, you know, and it was so absolutely normalized. And it's
00:40:31.140possible because there is not just like, it's use it or lose it paternity leave. And not just
00:40:37.140it create, there's so many trickle down effects. Just can you spell out why we are so resistant
00:40:41.960to non-birth parents? Non-birth parents. We're resistant to all kinds of leave. I want you,0.99
00:40:45.780unfortunately, in this country. No, it is, right? This is, I really think, a cultural moment that
00:40:51.940we are in and we actually all have agency and where it goes so do you like i remember every
00:40:56.560so often this will come with like a professional athlete right like a male professional athlete
00:41:00.040who will their their spouse will give birth and then they'll get while they're golfing right
00:41:05.720like they're playing the masters or yeah exactly and they'll take like two days off and they'll get
00:41:10.940you know all sorts of um you know kind of yelled at and there'll be sports center segments about it
00:41:16.440because it'll become this big thing but actually it's because i think it's currently contested
00:41:20.180like that idea of like is paternity leave like is it appropriate like because you still hear all
00:41:26.320the crap about like oh well what's the dad even doing he's just hanging out right like or what's
00:41:31.420the non-birthing parent even doing and like obviously i think we are reaching a point where0.93
00:41:36.360enough um non-birthing parents are starting to have those experiences um i'm starting to speak
00:41:42.980up about it that we're but we're in i'm hopeful that if we have this conversation 10 years from
00:41:48.280now things will um look very different but uh i think it is a legacy very much of this one's
00:41:56.540misogyny let's put it that way this one is very much like the idea of men don't have a role to
00:42:01.820play um yeah or number of things don't have a role to play in it and that's we have got to keep
00:42:07.580fighting it um and we have to fight for better maternity leave too we should say that too like
00:42:11.200that is it is insane yeah yeah so yeah and the fear i have is once again that this like it becomes
00:42:17.620the the paragon of like the private sector in terms of like oh well if you work for a quote
00:42:24.980unquote good company then they have more progressive non-birth parent leave policies
00:42:30.540but if you and i think actually in in various states too have been like trying to increase
00:42:36.460leave like leave policies and then it just leaves the rest of the country and the rest of like0.78
00:42:42.500workers or especially people who are don't work for places with benefits just like shit out of
00:42:48.500luck and that's why i feel like the cultural shift doesn't happen because we continue to place the
00:42:53.840responsibility in this private sphere that's absolutely right and then you get those those
00:42:57.460inequities too because who it's you know the the more affluent kind of white collar workers who
00:43:01.640have access to and it's not lower income workers and the disproportionately workers of color and
00:43:06.360then you get this weird two-tier system which is i mean look i have the private sector is not saving
00:43:12.800us here like the corporations cannot create a family-friendly society they can be part of it
00:43:18.100and i think actually thinking about things like flexible and you've written lots about this right
00:43:21.520like thinking about things like flexible work hours predictable scheduling like these are all
00:43:26.000things that is at a company level and that they could do but why are we asking companies to provide
00:43:31.380like paid like to be a national paid leave law we didn't you should have national and state funded
00:43:36.680you know child care and leave like that is the only thing that makes sense and look again it's
00:43:41.340it's not news but the united states and papua new guinea are the only two countries in the world
00:43:45.600with a national maternity leave law like it is in absolutely absurd without one without one the
00:43:50.640only two ones without yeah yeah so that national maternity leave law uh much less uh you know
00:43:55.940non-birthing parent leave and that's one where I feel like every time like this issue comes up
00:44:01.200around like parents and stay home and all that I'm like can we like it's a paid leave conversation
00:44:06.280when they're infants at least and like I feel like it needs to be brought up I sort of I've
00:44:10.600made a pledge that every time I talk about child care from here I'm going to at least include like
00:44:14.700one line about paid leave because we've separated them and it's weird doesn't this just circle back
00:44:19.940to the question at the top of our conversation which is that there is still this fantasy space
00:44:26.960held closely by conservative legislators that if the birthing parent is staying at home then why
00:44:34.300would they need leave right you know what i mean like that like so why would we need policy right
00:44:39.960if what we actually want is a scenario where this person is not working outside the home
00:44:44.280It is. It is there. You're absolutely right. And it is absolutely a thread there. I think it is. I am sensing a degree of loosening for, I think, two reasons. One is because, look, across the country, around 70 percent of children under the age of six have all of their available parents in the workforce.
00:45:01.620And much of the legislators don't like that. That means that in rural Idaho and rural Alabama and, you know, everywhere else, like there are a ton of families that have all of their available parents working. Actually, it's higher in like in rural and lower income areas because from economic necessity. So it really does cut across every line of difference. There's still those curmudgeony old white legislators who male legislators.
00:45:32.580They always, like, own a fucking car dealership and are like, my wife doesn't work and yours shouldn't either, you know?0.97
00:45:38.980But look, I will – I'm going to say with the faintest amount of praise I can provide something nice about Katie Britt, the senator from Alabama, which is that at the very least, she is willing to say, like, look, that's not a reality for everyone.0.97
00:45:56.000We are going to need to have an external child care system.
00:45:59.220And I think that's the other change we're seeing is younger legislators, even younger Republican legislators, are coming around or saying, at least, are acknowledging the need for an external child care system, acknowledging the need for better leave.
00:46:13.460Now, are they willing to pay for it instead of giving giant tax breaks to rich corporate friends?
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00:48:19.540Today's episode is sponsored by Wild Alaskan Company.
00:48:22.640So, Melody, we just got a new shipment of Wild Alaskan.
00:48:26.300There was a bunch of salmon, and I had been really wanting to try this fantastic ginger miso salmon curry with basil.
01:01:16.500has got to be the lowest hanging fruit for any politician.
01:01:19.780You would get 125% of the vote of the parents
01:01:23.940if you said that you were going to fix after school
01:01:26.180And some are care, but we don't because we have this general sense, and I think it is still a vestige of the great society, where we look to programs instead of to policy and this idea of an overarching sense of how do we organize our society, how do we organize our funding, how do we organize our government in ways that support an overarching goal.
01:01:51.200And if the overarching goal is the stability and quality of family life in all of its forms, that leads you in very, very different places than if the goal is to maximize the labor force participation rate or maximize the GDP or things like that, right?
01:02:05.840We go back to Bobby Candy Sr. and his famous speech about how the GDP can tell us everything except about what makes us proud to be Americans.
01:02:18.440It's philosophical in a sense, but that's the deepest answer to all of these questions.
01:02:22.940We have to put families at the center and then we have to push our politicians that we don't just want a laundry list of programs useful as they might be.
01:02:32.420We want all of society push and an agenda that is going to get us from this crap place that we are, where everything is harder than it needs to be, to your point, partially intentionally, to a place where everyone can thrive and can have the family that they want, which may include kids or may not.
01:02:54.520But, you know, right now, all we're doing is we've sort of turned over our choice set to the raw and uncaring maw of the economy, the free market economy.
01:03:06.860Well, and this makes me think, too, that part of that policy, and this is why I think it's so difficult to get people on board, like part of that family-friendly policy, and this touches every single thing that we've talked about today, would be universal health care.
01:03:21.500If you disarticulate healthcare from your job, it changes so much.
01:03:29.040If you disarticulate your access to elder care from your ability to afford elder care insurance when you're in a particular job and to buy into that at a specific time, the chance to buy into that in your life.
01:03:45.980If we just cared for people, how much would change?
01:03:50.100Yes. This is, as an aside, why I'm so nervous about this push for employer-sponsored child
01:03:55.400care. I'm like, let's not tie child care to employment, please. There, you're absolutely
01:04:00.020right. This is this question of, you know, Alyssa Strauss in her books, When You Care,
01:04:05.260talks about this idea of a care ethics and that it's actually part of the social contract. We
01:04:09.140just don't talk about it, right? Like, we need to start talking. We need to make care visible
01:04:13.560because it underlies everything, everything, everything that we are trying to do. And if we
01:04:19.840don't address it then yeah we end up in this place where uh you're you're in a thicket well and right
01:04:27.140now i think that most people would say that we are a society that privileges family above all else
01:04:33.020but does not actually create policy that reflects that idea yes we rhetorically yes yes i agree yes
01:04:40.860Rhetorically and ideologically, but do not, do not legislate or create policy or not programs policy that, that reflect that prioritization. And it's like, to me, that is the, the discrepancy that is at the heart of like so much sadness and, and difficulty.
01:05:03.940and also at the heart, I think, of the dropping birth rate
01:05:07.320because what we see in our society is people saying
01:05:10.160you are only valuable if you have kids,1.00
01:05:12.060but also it fucking sucks and deal with it.0.99