News and Happenings

Hundreds of thousands of young people in this country live in poverty or are homeless. Many thousands more face uncertain futures, and even abuse, while navigating (or languishing in) the foster care system. In A Place Called Home, author and child welfare advocate David Ambroz chronicles his life growing up homeless in New York City. He tells Gloria about his experience in foster care, the work he’s done to make the system safer for LGBTQ+ youth, and what action is still needed to begin solving the intersecting mental health, homelessness, and child poverty crises.

How do you find a job when you have no child care? How do you find an apartment with no job? How do you pull off Christmas when you’re stressed about making next month’s rent? Sa’iyda Shabazz has done it all. The writer and mother joins Gloria to tell her about how she made it all work – balancing single motherhood, unemployment, housing insecurity, and a lack of child care – in a new city far away from her support system. Plus, Sa’iyda talks about why she’s pushing back against the narrative of the so-called “Quarantine Queen,” and why we should all be focused on fighting for the much-needed social safety nets all parents deserve instead.

Gloria has a heart-to-heart conversation with Waukecha Wilkerson, a student parent advocate and single mom of three, about how her years-long struggle with child care ultimately put her on the path to earning her college degree. Waukecha talks about growing up as a gifted child in Compton, falling in with the wrong crowd, and getting pregnant in her early 20s. Her journey takes her through toxic relationships, job losses, battles with depression, and desperate searches for child care. She tells Gloria how she made it through, and how her family’s doing now. Plus, Waukecha shares the emotional story of a 20-mile walk that changed her life forever.

One in four people who’ve had an abortion identify as Catholic. That surprised Gloria, as most Catholic leaders are ardently against the procedure. In this episode, Gloria talks with Jamie Manson, the president of Catholics for Choice, and Jeanné Lewis, interim CEO at Faith in Public Life Action, about how abortion rights are viewed across different faiths. They also talk about what the recent midterm election revealed about abortion access, and how, with the right kind of conversation, you might be able to change someone’s mind. Even if they’re a nun.

Gloria kicks off the show by unpacking the numerous abortion rights and child care wins coming out of the midterm elections. Then, she chats with Stephanie Curenton, associate professor at Boston University and the director of their Center for the Ecology of Early Childhood Development. Stephanie talks about her research on the social, cognitive, and language development of low-income and minority children and the work she’s doing to create an anti-bias, anti-racist curriculum rubric for early education centers. Plus, Gloria and Stephanie get into whether or not they think early childhood educators should be required to get an advanced degree.

Gloria gets a lesson on the nationwide effort to censor classroom discussions on racism and inequality from Morgan Craven and Ben Hodge. First, Morgan, the director of Policy, Advocacy, and Community Engagement with the Intercultural Development Research Association, debunks some of the misinformation about what is being taught in our public schools. Then, Ben, a teacher at Central York High School in Pennsylvania, tells the story of what happened at his school when an all-white school board tried to ban over 300 books written by and about people of color. Plus, Morgan shares a shocking statistic on corporal punishment in schools.

Gloria sits down with NYC Council Member Julie Menin to learn how New York became the first city in the United States to pass universal child care. Julie talks about running a campaign centered on child care, how she convinced...

Gloria calls up Lynette Fraga, CEO of Child Care Aware of America, to unpack the many reasons why America’s child care crisis has only gotten worse over the past year, from inflation to the workforce crisis. Lynette explains why the...

Gloria gets a lesson from journalist Katherine Goldstein about why she no longer uses the term “working mother.” Katherine, who is also the founder of The Double Shift newsletter, podcast, and community, explains why the phrase devalues caregiving, and how...

The pandemic has brought the fault lines and inequities in our social sectors into sharp focus, perhaps most glaringly child care. The economic and social impacts of our failure to publicly invest in child care have become untenable not only for parents, but also for early education providers and teachers. In our first-ever live episode, Gloria moderates a panel of policy experts, child care advocates, and on-the-ground activists to help us better understand the underlying causes of the child care crisis and how we can push for progress. Featuring Matthew Henderson (Executive Director, OLÉ Education Fund), Nicole Mason (President & CEO, Institute for Women’s Policy Research), and Sarah Siegel Muncey (Co-President of Neighborhood Villages).