The Mother of it All
The Mother of it All

The Mother of it All

Sarah and Miranda

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We are Miranda Rake and Sarah Wheeler, two friends, mothers and professional writers on the parenting beat. The Mother of it All is our place to go deep into the culture of modern motherhood and have the conversations that truly challenge, feed and excite us. Expect warmth, humor and over-considered takes on hot topics, fresh takes on old ones, expert guests and good times. We're diving into the grey areas beyond the tropes — the wine moms, the rage moms, the anything moms — and instead spending real time with the ideas that help us grow as mothers and people in this cultural moment.

motherofitall.substack.com

Recent Episodes

What If We're The Helpers? With Elizabeth Doerr
JAN 20, 2025
What If We're The Helpers? With Elizabeth Doerr
<p>Sarah and Miranda move through their own climate change cognitive dissonance with the help of Elizabeth Doerr, author of the <em>Cramming for the Apocalypse</em> project. We discuss how parenting lends itself to climate action, how facing the climate reality can actually make you less <em>anxious</em>, and how mothers can give prepper stereotypes a much-needed makeover. </p><p><strong>Links:</strong></p><p>* <a target="_blank" href="https://www.scribentematernum.com/">Scribente Maternum</a></p><p>* <a target="_blank" href="https://crammingfortheapocalypse.substack.com/">Cramming for the Apocalypse</a></p><p>* <a target="_blank" href="https://substack.com/inbox/post/154518989"><em>How Do You Plan For a Future That Might Not Exist?</em></a> by <a target="_blank" href="https://substack.com/profile/14317462-liz-plank">Liz Plank</a> </p><p>“I miss my 2015 brain, the one unburdened by the weight of relentless catastrophes, and I miss my 2015 problems, those small, manageable worries that felt so monumental at the time. But more than that, I mourn the 2025 happiness I once allowed myself to envision, a life shimmering with possibility, untouched by the shadow of all we’ve lost. I grieve the future I was so certain would be mine, the life I thought I was building towards. I can’t pinpoint the moment it slipped through my fingers, but I know it’s gone. Most of all, I ache for the version of myself who believed in that future, who had the audacity to imagine a world that was bright and brimming with promise.</p><p></p><p><strong>What we’re all feeling is grief. Not the tidy, private kind, but a vast, collective mourning that binds us together. We are grieving not just the world we’ve lost but the futures we were promised, the ones we dared to dream of and expected to inherit.”</strong></p><p>* <a target="_blank" href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/144421737-what-if-we-get-it-right"><em>What If We Get It Right?</em></a> by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and her <a target="_blank" href="https://www.ayanaelizabeth.com/climatevenn"><em>Climate Action Venn Diagram</em></a></p><p>* Kathryn Schulz’s <a target="_blank" href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-big-one">New Yorker article about the Cascadia Fault Earthquake</a></p><p>* <a target="_blank" href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/371064127_Ecopsychological_Development_and_Maternal_Ecodistress_during_Matrescence"><em>Ecopsychological Development and Maternal Ecodistress During Matrescence </em></a>by Aurelie Athan</p><p>* <a target="_blank" href="https://substack.com/@windowofopportunity">Twilight Greenaway</a>’s Substack, <em>The Window,</em> with regular climate news coverage</p><p>* Donate to <a target="_blank" href="https://baby2baby.org/disaster-relief-and-emergency-response/">Baby2Baby’s fire relief support </a></p><p>* More links from Liz:</p><p>* <a target="_blank" href="https://crammingfortheapocalypse.substack.com/p/prep-series-week-8-evacuation-plans">How to pack a go bag</a></p><p>* <a target="_blank" href="https://www.ourchildrenstrust.org/">Our Children’s Trust</a></p><p>* <a target="_blank" href="https://www.familiesforclimate.org/">Families for Climate</a> </p><p>* Anya Kamenetz's Substack <a target="_blank" href="https://thegoldenhour.substack.com/">The Golden Hour</a></p><p>* Liz Doerr and Brekke Wagoner’s <a target="_blank" href="https://crammingfortheapocalypse.substack.com/t/resources?utm_source=substack&#38;utm_medium=email">10-week preparedness guide</a></p><p>* Britt Wray's <a target="_blank" href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/647141/generation-dread-by-britt-wray/9780735280724"><em>Generation Dread</em></a><em> </em>takes on climate grief head-on</p> <br/><br/>This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://motherofitall.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&#38;utm_campaign=CTA_2">motherofitall.substack.com/subscribe</a>
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53 MIN
Building Child-Friendly Cities, with Katie Beck
JAN 6, 2025
Building Child-Friendly Cities, with Katie Beck
<p><a target="_blank" href="https://www2.lse.ac.uk/Cities/staff-profiles/Katie-Beck">Katie Beck</a> is a Policy Fellow at the London School of Economics where she helps municipal leaders <strong>design more child-friendly cities. </strong>She joined us to chat about what child-friendly,<strong> care-centered city design </strong>really looks like, and who is doing it well. We talk about Bogota’s revolutionary ‘care blocks,’ what happened when Athens experimented with using a few parking spaces as a park instead, and how easy it really can be to make cities more child-friendly now. We dig into the ways that everybody benefits when cities are designed (or re-designed) with caregiver well-being in mind, and how we can advocate for care-centric urban policies and design in our own cities. </p><p>* <strong>Links:</strong></p><p>* <a target="_blank" href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001mc4p"><strong><em>Witch</em></strong></a><a target="_blank" href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001mc4p"><strong> podcast from BBC</strong></a></p><p>* <strong>Leslie Kern’s </strong><a target="_blank" href="https://www.versobooks.com/products/2626-feminist-city?srsltid=AfmBOoqVRe-qx9uyogKodQD2hfaQfEafweAfY39QqbT5wU9-oQVgvuCY"><strong><em>Feminist City: Claiming Space in a Man-Made World</em></strong></a></p><p>* <a target="_blank" href="https://www.who.int/news/item/29-10-2018-more-than-90-of-the-worlds-children-breathe-toxic-air-every-day"><strong>Bogota’s Care Blocks</strong></a><strong>: Creating Time for Caregivers: Care Blocks as pathways to social inclusion in Bogotá</strong></p><p>* <a target="_blank" href="https://www.who.int/news/item/29-10-2018-more-than-90-of-the-worlds-children-breathe-toxic-air-every-day"><strong>More than 90% of the world’s children breathe toxic air every day</strong></a></p><p>* <a target="_blank" href="https://www.themarginalian.org/2013/04/04/the-bed-book-sylvia-plath-quentin-blake/"><strong>The Bed Book by Sylvia Plath </strong></a></p><p></p> <br/><br/>This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://motherofitall.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&#38;utm_campaign=CTA_2">motherofitall.substack.com/subscribe</a>
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61 MIN
Kid Lit with Jon Klassen & Mac Barnett
DEC 30, 2024
Kid Lit with Jon Klassen & Mac Barnett
<p>Author <a target="_blank" href="https://substack.com/profile/10744973-mac-barnett">Mac Barnett</a> and author and illustrator <a target="_blank" href="https://substack.com/profile/14986484-jon-klassen">Jon Klassen</a> join Sarah and Miranda to explain what makes a great picture book and why kids might be better readers than adults. Plus, preschoolers with hammers, <em>Where the Wild Things Are</em> is a true story, the sad blunting our “keenness” as we age, and why we still love our bullies. </p><p><strong>LINKS:</strong></p><p>* <a target="_blank" href="https://open.substack.com/pub/lookingatpicturebooks">Looking at Picture Books</a> </p><p>* <a target="_blank" href="https://medium.com/the-book-cafe/baking-show-fans-will-love-the-golden-spoon-b5807c075b96">The Golden Spoon by Jessa Maxwell</a> (Miranda’s Bake Off mystery)</p><p>* <a target="_blank" href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/43579/rebecca-by-daphne-du-maurier-introduction-by-lucy-hughes-hallett/">Rebecca by Daphne de Maurier</a></p><p>* <a target="_blank" href="https://tv.apple.com/us/show/shape-island/umc.cmc.40xdlw2jijoj95c3a6y2m3738">Shape Island</a> on Apple TV</p><p>* <strong>“</strong><a target="_blank" href="https://www.amazon.com/How-Does-Santa-Down-Chimney/dp/153622376X"><strong>How Does Santa Go Down The Chimney</strong></a><strong>” by Mac Barnett & Jon Klassen </strong></p><p>* Reagan Iran Contra SNL Sketch</p><p>* <strong>Jon & Mac on </strong><a target="_blank" href="https://lookingatpicturebooks.substack.com/p/are-five-year-olds-better-at-reading"><strong>Margaret Wise Brown</strong></a><strong> over on their substack, </strong><a target="_blank" href="https://lookingatpicturebooks.substack.com/"><strong>Looking at Picture Book</strong></a></p><p>* <a target="_blank" href="https://www.booktrust.org.uk/book/t/the-elephant-and-the-bad-baby/">The Elephant and The Bad Baby</a></p><p>* <a target="_blank" href="https://motherofitall.substack.com/p/childrens-rights-adultism-and-parenting">Eloise Rickman on Children’s Rights</a></p><p>* <a target="_blank" href="https://www.themarginalian.org/2024/10/22/marginalian-18/"><strong>The Marginalian</strong></a><strong> </strong></p><p>* <strong>“</strong><a target="_blank" href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Ill-Fix-Anthony/Judith-Viorst/9781534404823"><strong>I’ll Fix Anthony” by Judith Viorst</strong></a></p><p>* <a target="_blank" href="https://lookingatpicturebooks.substack.com/p/where-the-wild-things-are">Mac and Jon on Wild Things</a></p><p>* <strong>Children’s book author</strong><a target="_blank" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/20/arts/dance/remy-charlip-dancer-and-childrens-author-dies-at-83.html"><strong> Remy Charlip</strong></a><strong> </strong></p><p>* <strong>Children’s book author </strong><a target="_blank" href="https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B001H6U0EW"><strong>David Crews</strong></a> </p><p></p> <br/><br/>This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://motherofitall.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&#38;utm_campaign=CTA_2">motherofitall.substack.com/subscribe</a>
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75 MIN