You're going to be. Welcome to the waves, Slate's podcast about gender, feminism, and today, Motherhood.

Every episode you get a new pair of feminists

to talk about the thing we can't get off our minds.

And today you've got me, Bridget Cholte,

I'm a journalist, author of overwhelmed,

work, love, and play when no one has the time, and director of the Better Life Lab, the Work Family Justice and Intersectional Gender Equity Program at New America.

And you've also got Angela Garbes, author of Like a Mother and the new fabulous book,

Essential Labor, Mothering as Social Change.

Angela will be joining me after the break.

But first, let's talk about motherhood.

In the United States, we're often told that being a mother, a parent,

a caregiver, is the most important work in the world. The language we use in politics, in advertising, the media,

and national discourse reveres mothers and caregiving

with politicians boldly proclaiming that we are a nation of family values.

And at the same time, that same conversation,

the same cultural norms and perspectives trivialize it,

or ignore mothers as invisible altogether.

Mothers and caregivers as fully realized human beings

are virtually absent from many of the movies and TV shows that shape our culture.

And when they do come into view, mothers often show up as

mommy bloggers, bad moms, exhausted and trying to get away from their

pampered kids, or mean girls on the playground arguing endlessly about the proper stroller, or they're caught up in

...