No One is Coming to Save Us

Gloria investigates where everything went wrong for childcare in America, and Kristen Bell joins to give Nixon a piece of her mind. “That's the sound of progress dying in the crucible of American politics.” Gloria digs into the shame, guilt, and divisions baked into our earliest day nurseries, and reveals how old-fashioned gender norms and blatant racism killed promising federally-funded, early childcare programs. With ...

Gloria explores the many places where childcare is working for parents – from Berlin, Germany, to Quebec, Canada, and even Patagonia HQ in Ventura, California. “Women are able to go back to work, families can actually afford good childcare, and the system more than pays for itself? Am I on another planet?” Kristen Bell joins Gloria (from outer space) to clue her in on America’s very own top-secret, high-qual...

Gloria chats with Elizabeth Warren about how we transform our country’s broken childcare system into one that’s accessible for all. “This is the moment to raise your voice. We have this opportunity to do it, but it's going to take all of us to push until it gets done.” Then, we meet a ragtag group of activists in Portland, Oregon fighting for a free, high-quality, universal preschool program in their communi...

Childcare doesn’t just happen out in the world. It also happens in each and every home where a child lives. In this bonus episode, we hear from Eve Rodsky, the author of Fair Play (Reese’s Book Club October ‘19), about how to create more cooperative homes and families. “While we're waiting for systems to change and fighting for policies, we can also take agency to make things better in our home - to invite m...

If you’re paying attention to the news these days, you’ve seen that childcare is front and center! Congressional leaders are nearing a Halloween deadline to pass two separate bills tied to President Biden’s Build Back Better agenda. One measure, known as the reconciliation package, could dramatically (and instantaneously) change how families approach childcare and early childhood education. To better understand wh...

Gloria is back and ready to tackle America’s child care crisis head-on. To kick off season 2, she calls up Lauren Cook, CEO of Ellis Early Learning in Boston. We met Lauren back in season 1, where she walked us through the nitty gritty of how much it costs to operate a child care center. This time around, Lauren tears up as she talks about how nationwide labor shortages are reverberating through the child care system, what sh...

Gloria explores how the child care crisis is impacting the people living it every day by talking to a parent and teacher at Ellis Early Learning in Boston. In the second part of our 2-part premiere, she calls up some familiar faces from last season – Shane Dunn and Kiya Savannah. Shane, a parent at Ellis, tells Gloria about how his family has balanced child care and full-time work over the past year, and why he feels like the...

Gloria explores the child care labor crisis with Dr. Lea Austin, Executive Director of the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment at the University of California, Berkeley. They get into why so many early educators are leaving their jobs, where they’re going to get better wages and benefits, and what we can do to improve pay disparities and racial inequities within the field. Plus, Lea reveals why she’s more hope...

Gloria outlines actionable steps for building a better child care system with author and policy expert Elliot Haspel. They discuss how we can work together with businesses to invest in a better system, why we need to reframe child care as a collective responsibility, and what you (yes, YOU) can do to get connected with child care advocates in your community. And if you thought that expanding the public school system down to infants...

Gloria sits down with Deb VanderGaast, the Iowa woman running for state senate on a child care platform. Deb, a mother, activist, and child care director, recounts the harrowing story that caused her to leave her stable nursing job to start her own daycare center (despite her family’s warnings not to do so). Plus, she tells Gloria what made her decide to run for office and what her top priorities are if elected. And Gloria gets tea...

Gloria calls up an old friend, the actress/author/activist Sara Gilbert, best known for playing Darlene on the hit shows Roseanne and The Conners, to talk about how they balance child care with demanding careers in the media. They get into Sara’s experiences with solo parenting, what it’s like bringing an infant onto a Hollywood lot, and how her family approached finding LGBTQ-affirming child care options. Plus, Sara te...

Gloria calls up Camille Bennett, an activist, child care center owner, minister, and the founder of Project Say Something, an organization confronting anti-Black racism in her home state of Alabama. Camille paints a picture of child care in the Deep South – one that includes staffing shortages, a broken subsidy system, structural racism, child care deserts, tears, stress, and teachers and parents at their wits’ end. But...

Gloria starts with an emotional reaction to the leaked Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Then, she calls up Wendoly Marte, the economic justice director at Community Change, to talk about the organization’s upcoming event, A Day Without Child Care. Wendoly tells us what they’re fighting for, what will be going down on May 9th, and how you can get involved in this national day of action. Plus, Gloria gives ...

Gloria calls up Liz Tenety, co-founder of Motherly and host of the Motherly podcast, to compare notes on balancing work and child care with a COVID outbreak in the home. The two of them talk about prioritizing self-care, acknowledging when you need help, and giving yourself permission to not do all the things. Plus, Liz tells a rage-inducing story about how her husband had to battle his own HR department over who, exactly, was the ...

Gloria breaks down everything you need to know about the future of child care policy alongside Julie Kashen, senior fellow and director for women’s economic justice at The Century Foundation. They get into the who/what/when/how/and why of child care reform: who is going to pay for it, what will this package include, when can we expect action, how do we get legislators across the aisle on board, why is it taking so long?!? And...

Gloria begins the show with her reaction to the unimaginable tragedy in Uvalde, Texas. Then, as America’s infant formula crisis continues, Gloria is joined by Caron Gremont, Director of Early Childhood at the No Kid Hungry Campaign. They discuss the toll that hunger takes on kids, how many childcare workers also face food insecurity, and what you can do to make “no kid hungry” a reality.

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There are so many skills young kids need to learn, but what can parents and caregivers do to teach them? First, Gloria learns about the seven essential life skills every child needs with the researcher who developed them: Ellen Galinsky, Chief Science Officer at the Bezos Family Foundation. Ellen tells Gloria that even though games like Simon Says may not have been conceived as a way to teach young kids executive functioning skills...

Mom guilt is no joke. You feel it when you drop your kids off at child care, when you check your email during their softball game, when you ask your partner to wake up early with the little ones so you can get a little more sleep on Saturday. But it doesn’t have to be that way! Gloria digs deep into mom guilt, timeouts, separation anxiety, and so much more with Dr. Becky, clinical psychologist and host of the Good Inside podc...

Gloria digs into a devastating report on how the pandemic has affected women and their families with Fatima Goss Graves, President and CEO of the National Women’s Law Center. The numbers in this NWLC report, “Resilient But Not Recovered,” are sobering. There are 1.1 million fewer women in the labor force today than there were in February 2020. More than 2/3 of the net jobs lost since the pandemic began were women&...