Crisis Conversations: A Parents' Movement?
Podcast
Oct. 23, 2020
The coronavirus pandemic is completely upending the way we work, live, connect with one another and what we expect from our government, communities and each other. It’s all happening so fast that stress levels and anxiety are sky high. That’s why the Better Life Lab is hosting a weekly interactive conversation for people to come together, share stories and begin to make sense of what’s unfolding and what it could mean for the future of gender equity, health, how we work and how we live.
Crisis Conversations–Live from Better Life Lab is hosted by Brigid Schulte and produced by David Schulman.
The United States is an outlier among developed nations when it comes to supporting working families. Unlike other advanced economies, we offer no national public paid family leave, no publicly supported universal childcare, no requirements that employers offer flexible work and schedule control. Researchers and advocates have long lamented we don’t have these policies because the constituents who need them most – parents – are too stressed and busy to organize and demand them. Has COVID-19 changed that?
To take on these questions, Better Life Lab's Brigid Schulte is joined by:
- Dasja Reed, Single Parent and Member, Strolling Thunder
- Alissa Quart, Executive Director, Economic Hardship Reporting Project
- Justin Ruben, Parent and Co-Founder, ParentsTogether
- Tamara Mose, Professor of Sociology, Brooklyn College; Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, American Sociological Association; and Author, Raising Brooklyn: Nannies, Childcare and Caribbeans Creating Community
- Jennifer Beall Saxton, Parent, Founder and CEO, Tot Squad
To hear more of this episode including stories and questions from callers, click here. You can also find this episode wherever you listen to your podcasts. The video and transcript of the conversation are down below.