Bragg Fights Back and Biden Ends the COVID Emergency

TOPICS DISCUSSED

  • Alvin Bragg v. Jim Jordan

  • Covid-19 National Emergency Ended

  • Outside of Politics: First Birthdays

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EPISODE RESOURCES

TRANSCRIPT

Sarah [00:00:07] This is Sarah Stewart Holland.  

Beth [00:00:08] And this is Beth Silvers.  

Sarah [00:00:10] Thank you for joining us for Pantsuit Politics.  

[00:00:25] Thank you so much for joining us here at Pantsuit Politics, where we try to take a different approach to the news. I apologize for the tone of my voice. The pollen has rained down fire and suffering upon me and my community. Yours as well, Beth. Everything is coated in yellow dust, including my sinuses, as you can probably hear.  

Beth [00:00:46] It's so beautiful and so miserable all at once. 

Sarah [00:00:48] All at the same time, guys. We're going to start today by talking about the lawsuit New York D.A. Alvin Bragg has brought against Representative Jim Jordan and the Congressional Judiciary Committee. Then we're going to talk about President Biden ending the official COVID 19 national emergency and how that's making us feel. Then Outside of Politics, we're going to talk about first birthdays.  

Beth [00:01:09] Before we jump in, don't forget that we do have a few speaking events coming up before we take some time off in the summer where we will not be out and about in public. Our event in Fort Wayne, Indiana, is sold out- which is so exciting.  

Sarah [00:01:22] Very exciting.  

Beth [00:01:23] There will be an overflow room available so you can check out the information on that in our show as there are also still tickets available for our event with Crowded Table in Fort Worth, Texas, on May 4th. The Secret Sisters are going to be there.  

Sarah [00:01:35] I'm so excited.  

Beth [00:01:35] I'm so excited about this. Info on that is also in our show notes. We would love to see you there and we would love to come talk with your organization or campus or community. We are booking events. We have a few spots left for the fall and then we're looking at 2024 now. We know that our presidential election brings up some tensions within communities and we would love to help you be prepared to navigate that as well. So, if you'd like to have us come speak to your group, please email Alise at Hello@pantsuitpoliticsshow.com for more information. We also have an interest form on our website, if you prefer that.  

Sarah [00:02:06] Next up, we're going to talk about Alvin Bragg. Beth, Alvin Bragg has been busy. He's not done with Trump. Next on his list is Jim Jordan, the Judiciary Committee. You read all 50 pages of his filing. Tell us what you learned.  

Beth [00:02:31] I try to be very even keel about all matters that involve the former president. I did not celebrate the indictment. I read it seriously. I am trying to be pretty neutral on the merits of it until more evidence is presented. All that to say, this complaint I savored like the day you booked us two brunches in France.  

Sarah [00:02:54] Ha-ha!  

Beth [00:02:55] Every single word of this, I loved. Here's what I love about this. When we were watching the January six hearings, I was so frustrated and like on the daily saying to people on Twitter, on our show everywhere, I could say it: when congressional Republicans go on Fox News and elsewhere and bash these proceedings and put out their own version of what they think this should all mean, they are not under oath. And the people testifying in these hearings are under oath when they testify. And I love that Alvin Bragg is like, okay, Jim Jordan, you want to walk around saying that my action is unconstitutional, it's brazen, it's politically charged? Cool. Let's go to a forum where you say it under oath. Let's go to a forum where we put in our complaint pictures of the Truth Social post and the Kevin McCarthy tweets, and the Trump picture of himself holding a baseball bat next to my head. And let's just make sure that we're all ready to stand behind our positions. I love that he is saying if we're going to do this, then let's do it in the right place. I'm not going to do this with you in the media. I will do it in a courtroom where there are rules and there's a process and we will let a judge decide. But we're not going to have the word unconstitutional be subject to the media frenzy. And honestly, I need us to do that everywhere. I need us to say unconstitutional has a meaning. It's not just what you think because you care a little bit about the Second Amendment. It's not just what you think because you follow Elon Musk on Twitter. That word has a meaning. And if we're going to bring it up, then let's go to a place where we can really test it.  

Sarah [00:04:40] And it just feels like that's where we're at. It just feels like between the Dominion lawsuit and the coming fruition of all these Trump investigations sort of post January six, which felt like the midpoint because it was for the TV. There was a congressional hearing, but it was for the TV. But there was also all these depositions. It was sort of like we're going to carry us over this point while y'all are out there doing your work. But now we're to the point with I don't know if it's because of Truth Social and he's not on Twitter, and because Fox News is trying to figure itself out in the middle of this Dominion lawsuit and we're getting the steady drip of text messages. It does feel like we're coming to a new phase where it's like we're going to clearly delineate. It's almost like Trump has forced us into this situation. He pushed that media strategy so far up into January six that now we have to play it out. We have to figure out like, okay, we can't take that any further. If you are going to constantly say the Democrats are out to get you, they're destroying our country, they're coming for you next, it's like it's this weird also match. Where it's like the further he plays the media strategy out, the further he escalates in real life the threats and the racial disgustingness flowing into Alvin Bragg's office. And so, they're two sides of the same coin. His media threats escalates his legal reality. And then in relationship to his legal reality, he escalates his media rhetoric. Well, then that plays out. And I just like that Alvin Bragg is like, hold the door; we're going to delineate these two spaces and you're going to figure out which one you want to play in and what court you're on. And we're going to try to teach the American public along the way that there is a difference. It's almost like how we're always saying like, well, there's opinion and there's news. Well, there's media and then there's the law. And it's like we're in a phase right now because of Trump where we're really going to have to piece those apart.  

Beth [00:06:43] And I just like that this action is fearless. No one operates in a space with Donald Trump in a fearless way. The press doesn't really do it. Republicans certainly don't do it. Democrats don't do it. Everyone seems like they're constantly waiting on him or responding to him. And I like that Bragg here says, "If you guys are going to send out subpoenas, you guys who in particular ignored subpoenas from the last Congress. Jim Jordan, you ignored a subpoena. I don't just ignore subpoenas. If you bring this to my doorstep and you won't engage with me directly, (because they sent a letter in response to the subpoena and said, we're happy to sit down and meet with you but we can't respond to what you've sent us) then I'm going to take this to a court and get a decision, because I know that I'm right." Though the legal issue here, if you haven't soaked up all 50 pages of this thing, is that Alvin Bragg is the supervisor of this matter where the state of New York has indicted Trump. And Jim Jordan has sent a subpoena to a former special assistant to the district attorney who had worked on the Trump investigation. He sent it to a former special assistant district attorney who has happened to write a book about that experience and a New York Times op-ed and who quit because he felt Alvin Bragg wasn't moving quickly or aggressively enough in this matter. So, that's who Jordan and the House Judiciary Committee targets. James Comer is also involved in this in an ancillary way, so is Brian Steele. But Alvin Bragg's argument is that Congress has no legitimate legislative purpose in digging into the details of a New York state criminal law matter.  

Sarah [00:08:29] Yeah, that sounds right to me.  

Beth [00:08:31] That sounds right to me, too. And he says this is an attack on federalism. It's about as basic as you can get. And what I just love is that he uses Jim Jordan and James Comer's words throughout this complaint. They've told everyone that their purpose here is for the district attorney to come explain himself to Congress. Well, that's not a legitimate legislative purpose. Come explain yourself for who you indicted. State prosecutor is not what Congress is built to do.  

Sarah [00:09:00] Yeah.  

Beth [00:09:01] The other thing that I think is really smart about this complaint is how it recognizes that it's operating in a media frenzy. So, it doesn't read like a typical complaint. There are long paragraphs instead of these short numbered statements that you typically get. But there is a section because Jordan and McCarthy and Comer and all of these yahoos are constantly saying, well, he should be fighting crime better. New York is a cesspool. Manhattan's the worst. He has a paragraph with statistics on how crime in Manhattan has gone down under his leadership. He's just on offense all the way through. From the first paragraph to the last paragraph. It's like his foot is on the gas pedal and he's saying, you guys don't know who you're messing with, and I'm going to put up or shut up here, and you should too.  

Sarah [00:09:50] Well, how do you feel about the Trump indictment now that you've read through it?  

Beth [00:09:55] I think it's too early to have any sort of feeling about it, because the indictment really just says we have a ton of factual evidence. We have an audio recording of Trump and Cohen discussing how to structure a payment to Stormy Daniels. We have receipts on all the facts that we're telling you, and you can surmise that we have a lot that we aren't telling you yet. And on the legal side, it just says, here's what we're charging him with. The hard piece of the legal side is that they're going to have to show an intent to defraud, plus an intent to defraud as another crime is being committed or aided. And so a lot of what you're hearing about this is such a weak case or a novel legal theory. Those people are like out in front of their skis, I think, because he hasn't told us yet what that other crime is. And there may be multiple crimes. There might be tax crimes. There might be election crimes. There might be things we don't know about yet. I think we are confusing the PR analysis with the legal analysis. That is just all too preliminary to have any perspective on whether this is a strong case or a weak case. But I can certainly imagine a universe in which this case came after an indictment from Georgia or after an indictment from the DOJ related to the classified documents or January six, you name it. Take your pick. I think if this case were not the first, it would not be pulled apart and batted around the way it is right now. It's just what's here, so we're picking at it to death.  

Sarah [00:11:30] Well, and also not for nothing, it didn't sustain the news cycle like the way I thought it would. There weren't as many far right people out there defending him on the streets. The coverage was very frenzied that Tuesday, no doubt about it. To watch him go into the courthouse was no doubt a big thing. Everybody was paying attention, but it sort of faded quickly. I thought real things happened. And I think there's just this realization when you have mass shootings and natural disasters and foreign policy issues that this is not a real thing. This is his stuff. This is just him back to being who he's always been. And it's not irrelevant. But I don't think that it is, even in the historical context of the first former president ever arraigned.  I don't know. It felt calibrated correctly to me, and I was pleasantly surprised by that.  

Beth [00:12:24] Well, look, there's not a factual dispute to be heard here. The facts that underlie this indictment have been known for years now. And you don't read a word of it and say, oh, that doesn't sound like Donald. You know what happened. You know that he had this relationship with The National Enquirer. You know that he had these relationships with women that he paid money to keep from surfacing at a time that would have hurt him. And so, all you're really arguing about is whether these meet a legal standard to charge a first degree felony. That's a question that the vast majority of us are not equipped to answer. And the other thing is, is this a valid exercise of prosecutorial discretion? Also, not a thing we're qualified to answer. You know what I mean?  

Sarah [00:13:10] Or even particularly interested in.  

Beth [00:13:11] Right.  

Beth [00:13:13] I think that'll change, though, as we move forward into the Georgia and the classified documents. Particularly the overthrowing of the government, seems to be the real headliner to me. And so, we'll be here following it all on Pantsuit Politics. Up next, we're going to talk about the ending of the COVID national emergency. This week, President Biden signed a congressional resolution ending the COVID 19 national emergency. It wasn't a top story, Beth. But I don't think this should go out with a whimper. I feel like we should really talk about it. I even like that they were going to let it expire naturally. And then the House passed a resolution ending it officially, and he was like, okay, I'll sign it. And it just feels like it didn't even bubble up to the top. But I felt like we should talk about this. We should talk about the national emergency surrounding the pandemic is officially over.  

Beth [00:14:21] For a bunch of reasons, right? It's not a small thing. I think people hear that and they're like, duh, I've moved on from Covid. Or absolutely not, Covid is still here and present and causing all kinds of problems. So, we still have like our Covid camps a little bit. But having something be a national emergency is a very big deal in all of the ramifications. What gets funded, what doesn't get funded, what resources are available to whom and for what. All of that really matters. And that's why I wish this were getting more coverage, because I would like to see a greater understanding of what this actually means, especially if you're a health care provider.  

Sarah [00:14:59] Well, yeah, because I think we're coming out of so many aspects of that national emergency. Like from the extending the student loan freezes, to the additional funding for schools, to just the additional money in our economy. We're going to talk about the economic news in a minute in that we might actually achieve the soft landing we've been looking for. And it's like even the additional relief with regards to food stamps and Medicaid, just all these different aspects of how it changed everything so quickly. And because we've off ramped at different speeds and in different ways, it just does feel like we haven't had that moment, which I think this congressional resolution can be to say, okay, now let's really assess what has changed and how we can get back to-- I'm going to use the word normal very loosely here, because I don't think we're going back to pre-Covid. The world is forever changed. And maybe we've just accepted that so fully. That's why you don't see more coverage of this ending of the national emergency. But I do think it's worth talking about like, okay, well, where are we going to fully scale back to how it was? Where are we going to keep some of these changes? What do we think some of these changes might mean? It's become such an undercurrent in all the conversations. I do feel like sometimes we miss that sort of conclusory aspects of where we're going next.  

Beth [00:16:25] And if not conclusory, intentional.  

Sarah [00:16:28] Yeah. 

Beth [00:16:29] I think I'm just waiting for like a big after action review for all of these. 

Sarah [00:16:35] Right.  

Beth [00:16:36] And I know that it doesn't go that way. There haven't been moments in history where people are like, let's all sit down and really think about what World War Two did to us. I mean, I get that it's not a group project, but I wish for that.  

Sarah [00:16:48] But it is. Yeah.  

Beth [00:16:50] I think that's why this is procedurally interesting, too. I found some comfort in the administration's plans to let this expire because then there's a date on the calendar and you know that all these ramifications people can be planning for. Then House Republicans decide this is like hot and heavy on their to do list. We've got to get it passed, maybe because they wanted to force Biden to veto it. I think it's smart that he didn't veto it.  

Sarah [00:17:16] Yeah, for sure.  

Beth [00:17:16] That would have been a public relations nightmare for no good. But I do worry about have those plans been made now? Do we know exactly what we're cruising toward? I think that because we were close enough it probably won't be bad, but that's just like a microcosm of what I'm talking about in general. I would love like just a big meeting maybe where we say, okay, we put a lot of money into things. What's the state of that money right now? What haven't we spent yet and what should we spend that on? Okay. We had a lot of shifting in the way we work. How are we doing on that, everybody?  

Sarah [00:17:52] Let's circle up about that.  

Beth [00:17:52] Yeah, I need some moments to process this sector by sector. And we're so much back in the grind of things that it doesn't feel like those moments are coming.  

Sarah [00:18:05] I mean, it just paradoxically feels like we don't talk about it and it's everywhere.  

Beth [00:18:09] Yes.  

Sarah [00:18:10] It is weird because so many things have changed and we talk about those all the time. There's not a story that's not about like office space and how we don't have all this office space anymore. I mean, we've been talking a little bit about the writers’ strike and the streaming and how that has broken the entertainment industry. Like, it is so confused. It does not know what's going on. It does not what's coming next. And Covid is a massive part of that. Like just a massive, massive part of the changes in the entertainment industry that came during COVID and what those mean about the entertainment industry going forward. So, it's this weird thing where it's everything everywhere all at once. And also, we don't have that 'this is what this means'. It's just like we're talking about what it means all the time and we can't get anywhere. Maybe that's why this feels so weird. Because in the way that it's consumed and subsumed everything, this is a hard ending which we don't get around a lot of things with Covid and we don't get around a lot of these conversations. And so, I think that's why this feels so different to me.  

Beth [00:19:16] There is simultaneous abruptness and fatigue.  

Sarah [00:19:19] Yeah.  

Beth [00:19:19] I think that since that we're always discussing it is why we don't want to discuss it anymore. We're just all sick to death of it. Make it go away. I can't do this anymore. And isn't it obvious? There is a lot that's not obvious to me, though, and I don't think I'm a particularly dense human being. I just feel so unresolved in so many places. And everybody is still carrying around like a lot of hurts from this period and a lot of unanswered questions from this period. And I know that we have reports from administrative agencies trying to tell us what they know about where this originated. But even not being able to answer that question at this point, to say the national emergency is over, but we still really don't know the origin of this. We think we're getting closer maybe, but we don't know. It's just frustrating to have basically an asteroid hit our lives and then to say, well, we're pretty well done with it, but we still don't know where it came from and what it exactly means for all of us. Bugs me.  

Sarah [00:20:22] Well, and I find that that's where our focus has gone is into the origin. Not that I don't want that question answered, but with the end of a national emergency of this magnitude, it does feel like we should have some sort of committee that's broader based than just trying to find out what happened in the lab in Wuhan. Like more comprehensive. Like I said, I just think we need to circle up. We just need a little meeting, a little circle up nationwide about what happened and what we learned.  

Beth [00:20:51] And for me, that is not going to come in the form of a subcommittee of House Republicans beating on Anthony Fauci. I don't mind asking some questions about what happened here and how our government responded, but that doesn't meet the felt need I'm experiencing as we're wrapping this up.  

Sarah [00:21:12] I just want to say, if we still had the Oprah show, she could fill that need for us. She had been doing a series. We would have had a comprehensive overview. Oprah would have led and guided us all through this national emergency. That is what we're missing. We're missing our 4:00 o’clock hour where we're all watching the same thing and working through it together. I feel very strongly about this.  

Beth [00:21:32] Well, that takes us right back to the writers’ strike in some ways, because it can't just be like a special that does this for us. It would need to be that sort of daily over some period of time where we're working through this and we're picking at different pieces of it.  

Sarah [00:21:47] Well, and it's so obvious, too, that this shook the entertainment industry so much and that it simultaneously marked this time, but also didn't offer that comprehensive guide through this time. I thought New York Times did that pop culture moments that define Covid. And I thought, are we ready for that already? Are we going to do that now? And then there, of course, was debate. Now you miss this or whatever, because it's not that universal experience like we used to have when it comes to entertainment, especially with streaming.  

Beth [00:22:14] The best writing that I've read about the writers’ strike is in the Anchor, which is a sub stack situation. And I loved this week's piece where they talked about how it is so difficult to resolve the writer's strike because no one has a real vision for the industry now. And I think that's what we're missing. What is the real vision post-Covid? I think that President Biden wants to articulate that vision as like we're building. We are building new infrastructure. We're building electric cars. We're building semiconductor plants. And that's all great, but it's so slow and it's so hard for everyone to rally around it and feel connected to it. If you don't have one of those plants going up within 100 miles of you, it's hard to feel that right now. And that seems to be the challenge to me. If that's what we're all going to get behind, which I like as a vision and which tracks history, that you go through a hard period and then you build on your way out of it. I like that. There is a big challenge in making that something that we can tangibly grasp as citizens, and that feels like an answer to our questions.  

Sarah [00:23:28] Well, and I think there's just a generational component too. They talked about that with the writers’ strike that everybody in charge in Hollywood is so much older than they were in the nineties. We have an older president. And I think that's why the moment in Tennessee where you had these lawmakers who were so young and you had activists that were so young leading the charge, came out in such sharp contrast. I think Covid escalated, revealed, manifested a generational change in so many areas of American life. And politics is certainly one of them.  

Beth [00:24:00] And I just wish that we could have some of that without conflict while we're doing pie in the sky. I would like us to all circle up and talk about our feelings about Covid. And then I would also like for us to just link arms generationally and decide that there is a place for elders, there is a place for people who are right in the middle of life, there is a place for young people, and that everyone really has a role in this big building project. I read a piece last week about how especially American foreign policy, we need some kind of purpose. We don't have a clear articulated purpose that when you say, like, why are we funding Ukraine? Why are we still fighting ISIS? Why are we working in the Indo-Pacific? We can't all say, well, this is the thing. And I think that I'm searching for that in lots of places right now.  

Sarah [00:24:54] Well, that's it. Maybe that's it. That's what we're struggling with. With a resolution ending the national emergency, we don't have a resolution telling us what comes next.  

Beth [00:25:04] Yeah.  

Sarah [00:25:05] What is animating us as we move forward out of this national emergency where everything is different and everything has changed and we know we're not going back to before. So, what are we moving into? There's all those polls that came out that were Americans are kind of struggling with a lack of sense of mission and purpose. And there's not a lot of religiosity and there's not a lot of patriotism or civic pride. It was like the only thing that really motivated people was money. And I don't think it's an accident that the central mission, as much as that has been innovating us as we come out of Covid, is tamping down inflation. Now, good news is I think we did it. It does look like we're getting very close to the soft landing that the Fed wants. Well, is do that it? Is that what we're here to do is to do? Is to tamp down inflation and that will be the success that we want coming out of a global pandemic. That doesn't feel very satisfying. I can tell you that much.  

Beth [00:26:01] It's both miraculous and banal, right?  

Sarah [00:26:06] Yeah.  

Beth [00:26:07] I kind of wish we could have some ceremony now saying we ended that, we're beginning this and here's what that beginning looks like, and here's like a super catchy phrase that we're all going to use about that beginning. I am happy to be emotionally manipulated right now by some super catchy phrase. I would take it.  

Sarah [00:26:24] Yeah.  I think that's what we're missing. We are happy to end the national emergency, but we need an articulated vision. And I do think you're right. I think Biden's build back better. And I don't think that's a bad one, but that's not going to take us through entertainment and work environment and the public education system.  

Beth [00:26:42] Gun violence.  

Sarah [00:26:43] Gun violence and our own family relationships. And I do think there's an undercurrent there. My husband and I sort of laugh all the time. I think you see it in the backlog of passports. And I think you see it in the intense desire to travel. It's sort of like, well, I didn't survive a pandemic for nothing. I'm going to get out there and do what's important to me and change what I want to change. And I still think you feel that energy. I just think it needs some channeling at a cultural and national level.  

Beth [00:27:13] Well, and I think he could give a build back better speech that extends beyond the physical construction. He could say, okay, Americans, your build back better is around relationships. Covid frayed so many of our relationships. And here's what I need you to do. I need you to get together with your families. I need you to take a big trip this summer. I need you to have a family reunion. It is so important. He could speak to gun violence in this way. We are working on the gun side of this equation, but the relationship side is the other side. And here's what we want you to do. I think he could use that umbrella to call on us as citizens for something. He has had to be in such a government can work mode that he hasn't been able to ask anything of citizens. I think cleaning up the mess from Trump, all the foreign policy issues, the Covid issues. Part of what I think we are hungry for is like that John F Kennedy sort of-- this is on you too. The citizens are in this. And I think he's got a slogan that he could pull us in to.  

Sarah [00:28:19] I think we just need some good old fashioned patriotism. I do think people have to feel like they're a part of something-- not something perfect, not something flawless, but an idea that is striving for something bigger. Because when you come out of a global pandemic, you definitely want to feel a part of something bigger, that you learned, that you grew, that you found that purpose. And I do think we're stuck a little bit in the awareness of America's flaws. And they are many. And I'm not mad at that phase, but there is something to be praised for a country that will recognize its flaws, that will do the hard work of that awareness and transparency and facing it. And so, I think you could reformulate patriotism that accepts the very real burdens, struggle, oppression present in a country and then still continues to move forward with a mission and purpose in mind. And I think we need a little bit of that, too, coming out of a national emergency. Our beloved employee Alise's baby, Oliver, is turning one. It's a big deal. It's a big deal for Alise. That's my hot take. I think first birthdays are about the mother. That's how I feel. Or the parents generally.  I just think that's what the first birthday is celebrating, is that we did it. We kept the baby alive. Everybody, please love on us.  

Beth [00:29:51] I had a completely irrational fit of rage today when I got an Ulta catalog in the mail because the cover of the Ulta catalog said Moms Are Everything. And I looked at Chad and I said, "No, we're not. I don't want to be everything. I'm not everything. I want to be a very limited number of things." But as we talked about it, the one time that moms are everything is during pregnancy and that first year when you are sustaining that child in absolutely every way that is material. And so, I totally agree with you. This is a celebration of Alise being everything and her journey into a chapter where she does not have to be everything anymore.  

Sarah [00:30:33] Yeah. Well, listen, let's not upsell the toddler phase, which is also very immersive. Y'all know, my position on toddlers is well-documented, and I like them. I find them unpleasant because they're just so intense. But I do actually like a one year old. I really don't start disliking them till about two. But, yeah, I love a first birthday and I will share that for Griffin's first birthday, which was like my over-the-top first birthday party. It was ludicrous, the amount of planning I put into this party. I had everybody bring their favorite toy from childhood of all ages. Because this is the problem with the first birthday, is it's like your highest attended birthday party. It's usually like a family party. But everybody brings toys that are only in a very limited stage of development, and so then you have like an overabundance of light up noisy toys and then you need more toys later on. So, I had everybody bring their favorite toy baby. I dolled those out for Christmases for years. It was awesome.  

Beth [00:31:30] I like that. I wish that I had done something like that. We had a lovely first birthday party for Jane, but I did not go crazy about it. I mean, I was tired. I like toddlers very much, but I'm going to go back to my anger at this Ulta catalog and I love Ulta. I'm sorry to beat up on them, but this idea that moms are everything really upset me. I think that the toddler time is when you see I have got to have a community of people around me helping me.  

Sarah [00:31:54] Yes, that's true.  

Beth [00:31:54] I must have friends where there can be playdates. I must have somebody who can come over and just chat with me while this kid is making me crazy. I must have people to run errands with. It is such an embrace of community. And so, I do wish that at that first birthday I had thought less about Jane and more about the adults I want to be in community with as I raise her.  

Sarah [00:32:19] Yeah, the first year is like very cocoon-ish. You can very much like wrap yourself up in your own house. I like a toddler much more when I'm out of my house, I like a toddler at a structured activity at a park, at a music class, at a play date. Or I like another toddler present to distract my toddler. I really want to have to manage the toddler as little as humanly possible is what I'm trying to say.  

Beth [00:32:41] Well, and the sooner you get toddlers playing around each other, the better for absolutely everyone.  

Sarah [00:32:46] Everybody.  

Beth [00:32:47] And they will just play around each other. It's weird to see that they don't play with each other. They just play around each other for quite some time, but it is so important to let them do that. Otherwise you're going to get to kindergarten and have a kid who struggles. You know what I mean?  It is difficult to be introduced later in life to other people's stuff. So, the faster you introduce them to other people's stuff, the better.  

Sarah [00:33:12] Well, this is energetically where I figured out when Griffin was about one years old that if I turned on like kid audiobooks or music in his room, he would go play by himself and wouldn't be [inaudible] all the time. Highly recommend like a nice long kid’s story podcast or something like that. He just wanted just a little something going on around him and then he could play on his own.  

Beth [00:33:36] But the big place for your energy, I think, when you're getting to that one year old stage is like, I get to be a person again. It's time for me to be a person again with friends and relationships and interests and hobbies. And it is time for me to stop being everything and make sure that I am fully engaging all the other adults who love this child in their care.  

Sarah [00:33:58] Well, Happy birthday, baby Oliver.  

Beth [00:33:59] Happy birthday, Oliver. Happy first birthday, Alise.  

Sarah [00:34:02] Yeah. And Kevin.   

Beth [00:34:04] Yes. Kevin, you count too for sure.  

Sarah [00:34:06] But mainly [inaudible]. Thanks for being with us today. Don't forget to send Alise an email if you have any interest in booking us for the 2024 speaking event. and have the best week available to you.  

Beth [00:34:33] Pantsuit Politics is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. Alise Napp is our managing director.  

Sarah [00:34:38] Maggie Penton is our community engagement manager. Dante Lima is the composer and performer of our theme music.  

Beth [00:34:44] Our show is listener-supported. Special thanks to our executive producers. 

Executive Producers Martha Bronitsky. Ali Edwards. Janice Elliott. Sarah Greenup. Julie Haller. Helen Handley. Tiffany Hasler. Emily Holladay. Katie Johnson. Katina Zuganelis Kasling. Barry Kaufman. Molly Kohrs. Katherine Vollmer. Laurie LaDow. Lily McClure. Linda Daniel. Emily Neesley. Tawni Peterson. Tracey Puthoff. Sarah Ralph. Jeremy Sequoia. Katie Stigers. Karin True. Onica Ulveling. Nick and Alysa Villeli. Amy Whited. Emily Helen Olson. Lee Chaix McDonough. Morgan McHugh.  
Beth Jeff Davis. Melinda Johnston. Michelle Wood. Joshua Allen. Nichole Berklas. Paula Bremer and Tim Miller. 

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