As you watch the Senate rush to confirm Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court this week,

I want you to meet someone else. Her name is Lori Bertram Roberts. I've started to think about

Lori as a through-the-looking glass version of Judge Barrett. Like the judge, Lori goes by three

names. For years, she lived in Judge Barrett's home state of Indiana. And Lori, she also has a

sizable American family. I'm wondering if you can tell me what it's like to have seven kids,

because I have two, and I think it's hard. Yeah, what it's like to have seven kids because I have two and I think it's

hard. Yeah. What does it like to have seven kids? It is a daily struggle and it's a lot of joy,

but it's also it's a lot. There are parts of my parenting journey that I don't remember very well, because it's just a blur.

Is it true that they start raising each other after a little bit of time?

That is very true. I mean, this is a true story that by the time I got to my third and fourth kids, I did not have to potty train my girls anymore. They potty trained each other.

Amazing. And so, like, I think that's one of the big, like, joys of having a lot of kids.

Unlike the judge, Lori's black. She's also spent much of her life straddling the poverty line

as a working mom. The thing that's not so joyous is like figuring out how to feed them or figuring out where to put all of them.

But things that worked for me was, you know, getting to know my produce guy at the grocery store.

And so I could find out when he was marking down produce.

Hmm.

So that I could buy all his marked down bananas.

No joke.

There is one more big difference between Lori Bertram Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett.

Lori is pro-choice, like really pro-choice.

Although she actually would not use that word to describe herself.

I mean, I use the label when it's useful, but I'm a reproductive justice activist.

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