Hey, mom and daughter fighting listeners. We're off today because it's Juneteenth, but we didn't want to leave you without an episode. So we're bringing you an interesting and perhaps kind of provocative conversation from Slate's podcast, Hear Me Out. The episode is from a few weeks back, but we thought it was still relevant, seeing as we just celebrated Father's Day. I'm going to hand the mic over to host Celeste Headley, and we'll see you back here

on Thursday. Welcome to Hear Me Out. I'm your host, Celeste Headley. As we enter the summer

months already, it means we're also approaching two kind of fraught holidays for lots of Americans,

Mother's Day and Father's Day. Now, you might think of these holidays as silly or superficial

or commercialized beyond belief, but their origins are deeply political. And parenting, whether

you like it or not, is political as well. To be a parent means being in a really complicated

relationship with a person who didn't necessarily choose to be there. So in the best of circumstances,

is bringing a kid into the world a selfish act if they can't consent to be here? Consider this.

Maybe kids don't owe their parents anything. Yeah, you deserve a day off, but the idea that

your kids owe you that, no, you owe your kids. It's hard to be alive and you force them to be

alive. Writer and influencer Gabrielle joins us on Hear Me Out in just a moment. Stay with us.

Welcome back to Hear Me Out. I'm Celeste Headley. You know, Mother's Day is often celebrated these days with fancy brunches, flower

deliveries, maybe some hallmark cards. But its origins in the U.S. actually date back to the mid-1800s.

For many decades after the Civil War, small local groups and churches pushed for some kind of holiday

commemorating both motherhood and the loss of children, specifically in wartime.

And that sentiment carried through the turn of the century and into the origin of the holiday we know today.

Originally, Mother's Day was intended to honor mothers whose sons had died in the Civil War.

Congress and President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed the first Mother's Day on Sunday,

May 9th, 1914. And we know how President Wilson expected us to celebrate because he wrote,

we do invite the people of the United States to display the flag at their homes or other suitable

places on the second Sunday in May as a public expression of our love

and reverence for the mothers of our country. Since then, of course, the flag has been replaced

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