You and Betty and the nancy's and bills and joes and james will find in the study of science

a richer, more rewarding life.

Welcome to Inquiring Minds. I'm Indravis Gontas. This is a podcast that explores the space

where science and society collide. We want to find out what's true, what's left to discover,

and why it matters. The pandemic has been hard on everyone, but some groups have been disproportionately

disadvantaged, people who are frontline workers, people whose

jobs don't allow them to stay safe, people who have lost loved ones or themselves gotten very ill.

But also parents who have had to face homeschooling their children without any kind of preparation

and also maintaining their own jobs. The situation has impacted mothers in particular.

Many of them have left the workplace in order to take over schooling their children, and there's

no sign that they're going to be able to go back anytime soon. We know that becoming a mother

changes your brain, but are there things that we can glean from studying mothers in other species? Can we

separate the effects of having children and bearing children from caring for them after they're

born? Abigail Tucker is a previous guest on inquiring minds. You might remember her from a book

she wrote about cats called The Line in the Living Room. I love talking to her, and so I was really excited

when her new book, Mom Jeans, Inside the New Science of Our Ancient Maternal Instinct, came across my desk.

Abigail Tucker, welcome back to Inquiring Minds. Thank you so much for having me.

So when we last talked to you, we talked about lions in the living room, you know, cats.

And I don't know if it's been since then or in addition to then, but now there are three other little lions in your living room.

Is that correct?

Well, actually, right now, we are on the cusp of getting a new cat.

I have suddenly acquired a new kid. So we're, our cat kid ratio is

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