Welcome to the Waves, Slates 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 Garbaz, 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,

a 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 stereotypical, no-win,

mommy identity wars, about whether one should devote themselves selflessly and entirely

...