The Feminist Backlash and Minority Whip Katherine Clark on Affordable Childcare
TOPICS DISCUSSED
Harrison Butker and Feminist Backlash
House Minority Whip Katherine Clark on Affordable Childcare
Outside of Politics: Smell Maxxing and Perfume Etiquette
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Brooke Romney Writes (Manners Calendar)
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TRANSCRIPT
Sarah [00:00:07] This is Sarah Stewart Holland.
Beth [00:00:09] This is Beth Silvers.
Sarah [00:00:10] You're listening to Pantsuit Politics.
Beth [00:00:12] Where we take a different approach to the news.
[00:00:14] Music Interlude.
Sarah [00:00:30] Thank you so much for joining us today. We are honored to have with us the Minority Whip of the US House of Representatives, Katherine Clark. Representative Clark has joined us to talk about the state of Congress, as well as her exciting new legislation, the Affordable Childcare Agenda. But before we get to one of the most powerful women in Congress, we're going to talk about what we think can only be described as a feminist backlash currently occupying the zeitgeist. Yes, we're going to talk about Harrison Butker. And as always, at the end of the show, we'll share what's on our minds or, as the case may be, our noses, Outside of Politics, where we're going to talk about smells and perfume etiquette and smell maxing.
Beth [00:01:08] Before we do that, we want to remind you that we're going to take a little different approach this summer by sharing episodes of The Nuanced Life on Fridays. Every Friday, you'll get a special episode of The Nuanced Life, which is a podcast that we made from 2017 to 2020 to expand on those Outside of Politics conversations and really to dig into the issues that occupy most of our lives and yours too. Family. Relationships. Parenting. So, we have lots of commemorations and questions from listeners to share. You'll see it just here in this feed every Friday. And to get a taste of what we'll be doing, we have a special live ticketed event coming up on May 30th. The Nuanced Life live, where we'll talk about work life balance, just to kind of get ourselves together and ready and prepped for the summer and the shift that we all make in the summer as we try to balance work and life in a new way. And we'll take your questions in real time. So, all the information that you need to get tickets for that special, Nuanced Life live event will be in the show notes.
Sarah [00:02:09] Next up, let's channel our inner Susan Faludi and talk about The Backlash.
[00:02:13] Music Interlude.
[00:02:21] Beth, I feel like this is the chance to trot out my minor in women's studies--
Beth [00:02:26] I like it.
Sarah [00:02:27] From 2003, where we spent a lot of time on Susan Faludi's famous book The Backlash. Part that always stuck with me is how much there was such a culture component to this backlash. And for those of you who've never heard of this book-- which makes you perfectly normal, do not worry about that-- post women joining the workforce in huge numbers in the 1970s with that second wave of feminism, there was what was considered a backlash in the 80s. And the example I always think of culturally is Die Hard. Have you heard about this theory involving Die Hard?
Beth [00:02:58] No. Tell me more.
Sarah [00:02:59] So Die Hard is supposed to be this sort of manifestation of The Backlash. So, the movie starts, she's on the top floor-- the wife of Bruce Willis character. They have divorced. She has this watch that represents her success as a career woman. Joke's on her, the terrorists take over her work Christmas party. Her husband saves the day. By the end of the movie, if you recall-- I don't know the last time you've watched Die Hard, perhaps at the holidays, she has taken back his name. I think she calls herself like Mrs. so-and-so, puts her wedding ring back on, and there's a moment where the terrorist is like-- something involving the Rolex that represented her career, and he's holding on to it and it's torn off and falls away. And she's back with her husband and her wedding ring and her last name. And the career was the secret villain the whole time.
Beth [00:03:54] Well, that does feel like an apt, prelude to the comments that have just set off every person I know. Every time I open any social media app, it is all the Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker and his remarks at Benedictine College. If somehow this has not crossed your channels, congrats. But this kicker for The Chiefs just gave a very deliberately provocative speech. That was my initial take. I don't even want to talk about this because he did this on purpose.
Sarah [00:04:29] I didn't know who he was. And now we all know who he is.
Beth [00:04:32] Right. And his jerseys are selling out. He decided this is my moment to become a conservative celebrity. And I'm going to take my moment. And I can imagine that he had a lot of different motivations for that. But at this relatively small Catholic college, he gives a speech about how women have been told what he referred to as a diabolical lie about career being the most important part of their lives, when actually-- as he knows from his beloved wife whom he teared up over as he's giving these remarks-- life really begins for women when they get married and start to have children and embrace their role as homemakers.
Harrison Butker [00:05:09] For the ladies present today, congratulations on an amazing accomplishment. You should be proud of all that you have achieved to this point in your young lives. I want to speak directly to you briefly, because I think it is you, the women, who have had the most diabolical lies told to you. How many of you are sitting here now about to cross the stage and are thinking about all the promotions and titles you are going to get in your career? Some of you may go on to lead successful careers in the world, but I would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world. I can tell you that my beautiful wife, Isabelle, would be the first to say that her life truly started when she began living her vocation as a wife and as a mother. I'm on the stage today and able to be the man I am because I have a wife who leans into her vocation. I'm beyond blessed with the many talents God has given me, but it cannot be overstated that all of my success is made possible because a girl I met in debating class back in middle school would convert to the faith, become my wife and embrace one of the most important titles of all- homemaker.
Beth [00:06:24] And to further my argument that he did this on purpose and wanted to become a conservative celebrity, he referenced Taylor Swift in his speech as his teammate’s girlfriend, and quoted a line from the song Bejeweled in a way that he didn't intend to be ironic, but really was. The way he lifted it from its context and everything he was saying is so contrary to what the song Bejeweled is about.
Harrison Butker [00:06:49] This undue familiarity will prove to be problematic every time because, as my teammate’s girlfriend says, "Familiarity breeds contempt."
Beth [00:06:59] So, anyway, he set out to do something provocative and, boy, did it work.
Sarah [00:07:04] And I think this comes in the context of the trad wives social media trend, although it feels a little bit more than a trend. To me, it feels like now a section of the internet where traditional wife influencers share how they wake up and they make their husbands breakfast and they have all these kids and it is their reason for being. And isn't it perfect and lovely and great? What pisses me off about all of that is, of course, they have a career. They're influencers, and it's an enormous amount of work and they make a lot of money doing it. But I think in the context of that undercurrent rapidly becoming more of a current in the context of Sam Alito getting called out for having an upside-down flag in his front yard during January 6th and saying, "My wife did it. It was my wife. She was fighting with the neighbor." Bob Menendez pretty actively blaming his wife in his trial. You have horrific video of Sean P Diddy Combs, who's under federal investigation, just heinously assaulting a girlfriend. I did not watch the video. My husband advised me not to. He watched it one morning and then he was like, you do not want to see this. So, I have not actually seen the video, but I could tell by his face it was pretty, pretty terrible. That you have this moment where people feel, if not comfortable, at least empowered to perpetuate some pretty traditionalist ideas about women's roles in society, in a workplace, in a family.
[00:08:46] And, look, it's not that I don't think any of this is worth having a conversation about. It's not that I think second wave feminism sold people a lie. Obviously, I do not believe that. See my aforementioned women's studies minor. But I do think we're going to have a live event in a week about work-life balance. And there were some really hard conversations happening during Covid about what does this mean? Who's doing the share of the labor? How is this working? I think all the time of that moment where Cate Blanchett as Phyllis Schlafly, the original super villain of the 80s Backlash, in Mrs. America, the series about that sort of anti-era movement says, "Then they'll just want us to do both. We'll have to work all the time and do everything at the house." This is a lie. This is a trap. And, look, that line lands because it hits. It lands because it hits because it's true. Because it feels that way to a lot of women. And that's all important, but that's not what any of this is about. This is not about having that conversation. This is not about improving the lives of women, homemakers or otherwise. That is a lie. That's not what any of this trad wife Harrison Butker bullshit is about. Ain't nobody in this part of the internet or real life looking out for women. That's not it.
Beth [00:10:20] I just read an article about how there are these channels where trad wife influencers commiserate together about their unhappy marriages.
Sarah [00:10:30] Secretly.
Beth [00:10:32] Secretly, and being stuck in those unhappy marriages because of the way they have brought together marriage, career, identity, religion often. I do think all of this lands because we're still trying to figure out, especially people who were raised in more religiously conservative cultures, what do I want my life to look like? Where do I find a sense of purpose and meaning? How am I perceived by the world? And I know, for me, I just have felt a little bit of cognitive dissonance as we have all of these stories. We have the erosion of reproductive freedom. We have the battle over gender as a spectrum versus something fixed. The constant use of the transgender issue as an election issue. And then I have these two daughters who are almost nine and 13, who get nothing but an empowered message every single day from every aspect of their lives. School, church where they have three women pastors. Everything they know is is gender parity. And if anything, it's that boys struggle more than they do. And so I feel weary when I read another one of these headlines, because it is something that's sort of rolling around in my brain all the time. Like what is it an effective approach to these issues? How can we move past what feels like a 75-year-old conversation, but that has again occupied everyone's imagination for almost a week now with these commencement remarks?
Sarah [00:12:27] Well, listen, it was the second wave of feminism. This has been going on for a long while. Longer than 75 years. They took a hell of a backlash in the first wave. I think it's natural. And I don't think it's about these difficult issues that women face. Look, you want to complain about your traditional role, but you got to do it in secret. That's the problem. I want to bitch about the fact that I feel like I have too much of a share of the domestic chores in the face of working full time. I can say that to whoever I want as loudly as I want, and that's the difference. And so, to me, this is about other cultural moments and momentum that has built over the past two years in particular, Taylor Swift. He brought up Taylor Swift for a reason. She is breaking people's brains. Her level of success, her level of cultural absorption and this massive success along with romantic connection that we are all following along and delighting in, it's really hard for people.
[00:13:40] I have this theory that the reason AOC sets so many of these men off is because they're just so pretty, and it breaks their brain. Like, they can't. It's really hard. I want to hate her, but she's pretty. What I do? You put Taylor Swift, Beyoncé and (I mean not enough words or emphasis for this last one) Caitlin Clark all together, and you have men and women-- that exchange between Marjorie Taylor Greene and AOC and Representative Crockett, it's not just men who fight equality. It's not just men who fight women breaking through to new levels of fame or fortune or success- it's women too. They're just as much some foot soldiers in the patriarchy as anything else. Because it does feel like we sort of leveled up, especially with Caitlin Clark and Taylor Swift. It feels like what was available to women before is now shattered, laying on the ground. We have broken through to a next level. And that is going to make a lot of people feel very, very threatened.
Beth [00:14:56] And that's not even to mention our vice president. There has been what has almost felt to me like a concerted effort to avoid the backlash associated with a woman vice president by deliberately minimizing how Kamala Harris spends her time and the contributions she's made to this administration. I try to keep up with her, and on More to Say I occasionally talk about what she's been up to. She's been very effective. I feel like the public perception of her has been stuck in the first few months of the administration when she had some bad press, but she's been very effective. She's especially good on the international stage, in a room where she's talking about things like AI and humanitarian aid and developing nations, and aid to those developing nations as a security issue. Having spent a lot of time thinking about Kamala Harris, I have zero concerns about what would happen if she were to become the president. That is, to me, the easiest question around Joe Biden's age. Could Kamala Harris handle being the president? One hundred percent, she could. And I think that breaks people's brains, too. I think we have minimized her deliberately to avoid some of the brain breaking, but we probably need to get into that, too.
Sarah [00:16:19] Well, and look, I think we have to hold the advancement of women in American society, which is real. Women are now out earning where they were before Covid. That has been replaced. We are back to where we started and maybe a little bit above, I think. Doesn't mean everything's perfect. We haven't solved it. Taylor Swift didn't fix patriarchy, but the other side of this coin is where women advance, and we create a more complex narrative about what it means to be a woman, about what it means to have success, about what's required of our partners, and what we need from society. To this conversation we're about to share with Katherine Clarke about childcare, which affects men and women. But you understand what I mean. I do not think we have the equivalent conversation about what it means to be a man in this society. The loudest voices in that room or in that conversation are saying things most of us find abhorrent. But they're talking about it. They're not pretending like it's not a need that needs to be articulated, that needs to be addressed for young men in particular.
[00:17:26] Somebody got in Harrison Butker's ear and it wasn't his mama. She's like a physicist or some shit. People are talking about what does it look like to be a man right now in America? And I don't think most of us like what they're saying. So, we got to have an answer to that, because the answer is not just somebody no one wants to encounter in the woods. Not to bring up another controversy, but that's a shitty answer. Might be true, might be realistic, but it's still a shitty answer for me to tell my 15-year-old, 13-year-old, and nine-year-old sons, most important thing about you as boys is that being a boy is toxic and it makes everybody else afraid. That's not a great answer. I don't love it. So, we have to have more of a conversation about the heights of success for men, and what does that mean, and what does that look like? That's why I love Travis Kelcey. Because I think him and his brother have some really beautiful answers to that. Just really great answers to loving their career, to loving their families, to connecting with each other, to sharing that kinship for all the world to see. Great. What a great example of masculinity. But we need more of that, and we need to not act like even addressing it or asking for it is just reinforcing the patriarchy.
[00:18:52] Because we've spent decades worrying about men, now we have to worry about men still? Yeah, we got to worry about everybody, guys, all the time. We have to worry about everybody. We have to be teaching everyone about our experiences all the time. That is what it means to be a human in society, is to share hard things in conversations you don't want to have all the time. That's what marriage is about. That's what parenting is about. That's what citizenship is about. That's what being a student and a teacher is about. This idea that we will get to a spot where no one will be made uncomfortable because the hard things they've been through in their lives are theirs and there's a lone, I don't think is achievable. And I think that the idea that that's where we're supposed to get and everybody is supposed to be enlightened without having a conversation with another human being that had an experience different from theirs, is unrealistic. I'm sorry. I'm feeling a little spicy today. It's Harrison Butker's fault. You can blame him.
Beth [00:19:46] Well, and all of what you said is why I have a hard time keeping a Harrison Butker in perspective. Because I think you're right, that is not where most people are. The Kelce brothers success, Patrick Mahomes, lots of professional athletes have done pretty groundbreaking work around what it looks like to be a man in society. My kids have had many male teachers, even at the elementary level. We just hired at the child care center, where I spent a lot of my volunteer time, a male executive director for early childhood education. The girl's dad, and almost all the men in our friend group are leaps and bounds from the traditional gender roles that even we grew up in. And so, I can't decide how big the backlash is and how much of my attention it deserves. I can ignore Harrison Butker. I cannot ignore Samuel Alito, and I cannot ignore some of what happens in Congress. And even I hate it. My initial reaction to Representative Greene and Representative Crockett even was like, oh my gosh, I hate this for women. I hate that this is the depiction of women in Congress, which is totally unfair. Male representatives do this all the time. True equality is having some bad behavior by everyone in Congress, that all hopefully is not the norm. Where you just say that is not normal. We're only seeing it because it's not normal. So, keeping this in perspective is really challenging.
Sarah [00:21:24] I think as I've said a million times on the show, that history always gives me a new perspective. I know some people here we had a backlash in the 80s and think, ugh, we never make any progress. That's not how I feel when I see-- what's the phrase? History doesn't repeat, but it rhymes. That makes me feel better. It makes me feel less alone. It makes me feel like, yeah, Die Hard was shitty, but we didn't just pack up our bags and go, "We'll never mind. We'll give up on feminism." We still got Taylor Swift. We still have Caitlin Clark. We still get to places where men are active and involved in their kids’ lives. And we have people like Richard Reeves writing the book that we talked about last summer, like, paying attention to these things. Man, I have this Instagram channel I follow. I think it's called We Are Man Enough. And every Friday they just do this carousel of positive masculinity. And it's one of my most favorite corners of the internet, because it is just all this beauty. And, look, that wasn't nonexistent in the 50s or 60 or 70s, but it's gotten better. But it's not a straight line, man.
[00:22:34] You get better and then people go, "This makes me uncomfortable, help" and then they shut down. There is always going to be fearful, threatened, ignorant people. I wish it was not so, but it is. And to decide that that is sort of a sign of progress that we're pushing people to places that make them afraid, just to see that that pattern and go, "Okay, well, that just means we're just breaking through." But also, not to say forget them. You have to see it. You have to go, "Okay, well, that's where this is coming from." It doesn't mean I want to go give Harrison Butker a hug. I don't. He's a rich professional athlete. He deserves the criticism that's coming his way. But it's worthwhile to say he's speaking to something there. Don't ignore it. Don't pretend like he's making it up. There are some people out there that are very threatened, that do feel like second wave feminism sold them a lie. And it cost us nothing to go, "Yeah, it wasn't perfect. There were things we couldn't anticipate. There were challenges that no one saw coming." That's okay. That doesn't mean it was a failure. It just means it was the normal progression of human history that we don't get everything right every time. But it doesn't mean we go backwards either. Supreme court.
Beth [00:23:53] It kind of makes me think about Covid, too, and the way that we learned more and adapted more as we recognize the unevenness of everyone's experience. And that's just always going to be true around gender. What's happening with women's rights and feminism means nothing if you live in an unsafe household. If you are being victimized by people who are supposed to love you, who cares what the cultural conversation is or the overall progress of women? You got to be where you are and just be in survival mode. And I think that workplaces are so uneven right now. The places that are trying the hardest are very different from places that aren't trying at all. And the places that try the hardest often get their own, like, mini cycle of backlash. I recognize more and more that the freedom I feel to mesh all the critical parts of my identity, which include both career and family, that freedom for me comes from the fact that I live a very creative life.
[00:25:06] And I don't just mean creative in the sense that I do creative work, but in the sense that both Chad and I work from home and have really, really flexible schedules. There isn't a place of rigidity that we can't change, and that is not where everybody is. And so, of course, my read of something like this is going to be different than it would have been when I was working in an office every day. I think Harrison Butker would have pissed me off a lot more 10 years ago than today, because today I'm not fighting that wave at work. I work with three other women, so I'm not fighting that wave every single day. And I get why this spins people up who are in more rigid environments than I am. And I don't have a good answer to how we break through because society doesn't work if everybody opts out of a really traditional workplace, or a really traditional religion, or a really traditional community.
Sarah [00:26:07] I reserve all my rage for the [inaudible] Phyllis Schlafly, who's been dead for years, and I can still get real hateful about her real fast and not feel an ounce of guilt about it. I just don't. I don't feel bad about hating Phyllis Schlafly, dead or alive, if I'm just being really honest. And I can get in that space with the trad wives too. The people who profit off the backlash know what they're doing. Know that they're hypocrites and do it anyway. I can get real mad about that. But I think to the history of the second wave, when you said the thing if you're in an unsafe house, no one expects someone in an unsafe house to hold this, but the rest of us should. Like, there was no help for anybody in an unsafe house before second wave feminism. Period. It was not even a crime. I just think we forget that. I just think we forget how far we've come. And it was on the backs of activists who pushed and who took the brunt of so much of that backlash.
[00:27:08] And, look, I know nobody wants to feel sorry for Beyonce or Caitlin Clark or Taylor or any other rich woman, but they're taking some brunt of that too. And I appreciate that. That's why I have an undying devotion to Hillary Clinton. Because the people who are at the tip of the spear saying uncomfortable things and pushing people, especially women, people like Kamala Harris, they earn a certain degree of loyalty to me because they change things permanently by absorbing the heat of that backlash. And so, it's just hard to hold all that. It's hard to hold that the progress is real. And also, that Donald Trump rides this wave of machismo through men of color and see that polling and be like, what are you talking about? How could that be? But, to me, you always have to keep that in mind. You just got to hold both. Backlashes suck, and also, they mean that you're getting somewhere, which feels like an excellent opportunity to introduce Katherine Clark into this chat.
[00:28:14] I would think that The Minority Whip of the House of Representatives has lots of thoughts. The Minority Whip is responsible for whipping up the votes, for making sure that the members of the minority party are going to vote the way the party leadership hopes they vote. I don't know where the verb whip came from, but that's what that title does. But you know what's great about talking to somebody like this, is that she doesn't spend her time sitting around thinking about Harrison Butker. She spends her time formulating legislation that gets to what these conversations bring up over and over again, one of which is the lack of affordable childcare across the United States. And the real ways that impacts all people- working women, stay at home moms. I depended on childcare as a stay-at-home mom, and so we can't wait to share this conversation with you with Representative Katherine Clark.
[00:29:06] Music Interlude.
Beth [00:29:18] We are thrilled to be joined by Democratic Whip Katherine Clark today. Thank you so much for being here. Now, we're going to talk about your legislative agenda in this bold, critical, affordable childcare agenda that would make a huge difference for our economy and our society. Before we do that, we're talking about this against the background of a House of Representatives that seems a little chaotic. Democrats just had to help the speaker of the House hold on to his job. Getting the most baseline things done this year has been a struggle. So, we just wanted to ask you, how are you? How's it going? Tell us a little bit about how the House is doing as a body.
Katherine Clark [00:30:00] Well, thank you, Beth and Sarah, I am so thrilled to be on with you. And thank you for that question. I sort of work in a really bonkers place right now that is filled with division and partisanship, and I've watched the House GOP really sort of devolve into a civil war. And I think why I'm so glad to be having this conversation with you is that I do want to bring some optimism to your listeners that I, and many others, really do see the American people and childcare as one of the many struggles, one of the many costs that we are working to lower. And that people should know that their voice, their opinions really do matter to their members of Congress, and that this is going to be a big election year. And if you feel that the issues that you care about, that your family's struggling with, facing challenges with aren't being talked about, you need to speak up and know the power of your voice on that.
[00:31:13] So it is chaotic, but there are people, and I'm really proud of the Democratic caucus that I feel continues to have a picture for the American people of how government can work effectively and can reprioritize to put their needs front and center of the work we do. And as I look at some of the internal party fighting across the country, I feel like people with families are kind of looking in saying, "Do they see us? Are we part of this or are we not?" And I just want your listeners to know that we do. And there's a good group of committed members that are there for the right reasons. And we're going to continue to step up and support bills that we may not have written, may not be exactly what we would want. We may even have some major disputes with, but are really critical to keeping our government open and not going over a debt ceiling cliff. Making sure we're supporting our ally in Ukraine, and those sorts of key things that we are going to continue to show up and supply the votes for to get us past that sort of internal warfare we're seeing in the House GOP.
Sarah [00:32:44] Yeah, when I told my husband I was like, we're getting on with the Minority Whip, but really the majority whip because they're providing all the votes to get these major things done. And I know that child care has been something you've talked about a lot in your time in public service. We did a series on infrastructure a couple summers ago, and we talked about child care as a major component of infrastructure, and how it's really a market failure because you both can't provide affordable childcare and also can't pay affordable wages. And that to us is a market failure. So, what have you learned about that? What are you seeing from your perspective formulating this policy, hearing from people all across the country?
Katherine Clark [00:33:27] Again, Sarah, that's exactly it. You nailed it. This is a such a labor intensive, expensive service to provide. And what we have done is something we tend to do throughout our history as a country. We devalue the traditional work of women and women of color, who provide most of the childcare, overwhelmingly provided by women in this country. And if we raise those wages to where they need to be so that childcare providers can care for their own families while they're working full time caring for ours, it often tips this balance of an already very expensive service into the totally unaffordable for families that even have dual incomes and are making pretty good money on paper. It just becomes really, really hard. And so, part of what we need is the federal government to step up and help us solve this puzzle. And it's all about our affordable childcare agenda, it's making sure that we have care that families can find that is affordable, accessible and is paying the living wage. And it's just not going to work without public dollars making that investment. And it's long past time. We were almost there in the Nixon administration, and we've really never gotten so close again. But the pandemic taught us many lessons, and one is that childcare enables all other work, and it is critical economic infrastructure that we have to make an investment in like we are with our roads and bridges and broadband connection across this country.
Beth [00:35:26] What is that legislative blueprint? As you said, we're not starting from zero here. We've been at this a long time, and we did spend a lot of money on childcare during the Covid era. What did we learn from those expenditures? What's out there that's working that you want to build on?
Katherine Clark [00:35:42] Yeah, we learned that when we start to actually make this investment, it not only works for families, it works for businesses and for employers in recruiting and retaining the workforce they need, and especially women in the workforce. And we've had some real success. I look at the Chips and Science Act that we passed, and our Secretary of Commerce, Gina Raimondo, put in a requirement that if you accepting over $140 million of federal funding to help you build a manufacturing base and plant in the United States, that you also have to have a plan for how you're going to provide childcare. And that's really using public funding to leverage private spending to help us solve this crisis. And that's just one example. But we have lots of good legislation that looks at making an investment that caps a percentage of family income to what they can spend on childcare.
[00:36:53] So even that certainly helpful to low-income families, but also helpful to middle class families, who, again, looks like they should be able to make it. But childcare can be bigger than a mortgage payment, bigger than a rent payment, and can just be that one thing that breaks a family. And really is just what they can't afford. And I remember working as general counsel for the Office of Childcare Services here in Massachusetts and figuring out my entire take home pay went to childcare for my three children. And my husband was just like, "What are we doing? I mean, what are we doing?" But we got through it. But for a lot of families, it's not an option to get through it. And they end up dropping out of the workforce. And we're leaving every year over $100 billion on the table in underutilizing our workforce because they cannot find affordable childcare.
Sarah [00:38:02] I'm really intrigued by your three pillars, because I think we spend a lot of time on affordability. We spend a lot of time on fair wages. But when you said accessibility, I started nodding because I think that's such an important third component of addressing this crisis. Can you speak to that accessibility issue?
Katherine Clark [00:38:21] We know that for many families, (whether you're in rural America, suburban or urban) are living in childcare deserts where they just don't have childcare providers that they can get to and access for their families. So, we are looking to create incentives around that as well, helping them address capital needs, making sure that we are tapping those private industry dollars so that we are creating tax incentives for people to open childcare, especially in high need areas where there just aren't providers available. So, we need to look across the spectrum because we can have affordable, quality childcare that's paying a living wage. But if it's 75 miles from your house, it's not going to make a difference.
Beth [00:39:20] How are you thinking about workforce development here, too? I spend a lot of my volunteer time with my churches childcare center. We have a 200-- I think our license says up to 200 kids for our childcare center,
Katherine Clark [00:39:32] Wow!
Beth [00:39:33] It's a nonprofit daycare. It is extremely complex to run. It's an important ministry in our community. But keeping it staffed is a huge challenge and my involvement has helped me better understand these are very professional jobs. You have to have so many skills to do early childhood education to keep up with the incredibly diverse needs that children walk into these classrooms with, to stay on top of best practices in caring for kids with special needs. So, I just wonder what kind of legislative tools do we have to get more people into the workforce? In addition to paying them well for what they do, how can we see more people in this field?
Katherine Clark [00:40:18] That is such a great question, Beth, because you have seen this. These are truly early educators and it takes a lot of skills. And if you are then adding children, which most childcare classrooms have kids with learning challenges, even medical and physical challenges that need very skilled workforce, so how do we go about it? How do we go about recruiting and then retaining our child care providers and early educators? And one is, of course, paying a living wage. But it's also about where are the benefits? Where are the benefits structure? Is there a public retirement plan they can tie into so they can see that for themselves in the future? We know that some of our greatest competition comes from public schools, and that is very rare that our public-school teachers are the ones who are seen as having so much better pay and benefits than our childcare providers.
[00:41:26] So we have to make sure that we are staying competitive, but also that we are creating career ladders for people so they can come in and be a teaching assistant, but get some real incentives to go back to school, have help doing that, have tuition reimbursement so that as they get their credentials and work their way up the career ladder, that they can do it while working and afford to be able to stay in that position and move up. And so I think we have some really good models of how to do that. Head start has always done a great job of taking parents and moving them through that model. And we have seen some excellent workforce coming from within the parents who are sending their children to childcare and helping them afford the education pieces, the certification pieces that can get them started and progress them up that career ladder is a really central part of how we build not only the living wages, but how we also are addressing that access issue.
Sarah [00:42:44] Now that makes so much sense. Are you seeing other programs or states or localities that have really figured this out? I remember reading an article like a couple months ago about I think it was a town in Wisconsin and their last center closed. And so, the local government built one. When you said capital improvements, that really rang some bells for me because some of these places they have to find a building to put this in before the government can even help run it. And so, I'm wondering if you've seen some examples of that.
Katherine Clark [00:43:14] We have seen some examples, and there are lots of good models out there. And we are so rich in legislative ideas of how we can do this. I have carried a bill around infrastructure, just what you were talking about, Sarah, reusing public buildings and creating the opportunity for either no rent or very low rent for childcare providers to access the physical space they need. Because there's lots of licensing requirements in states and there is really good quality and safety ideas behind it. But it's not like you can just house children anywhere. You have to have all the the square footage that you need. You have to have lots of different access and ways to make, whether it's a family childcare home to a big center-based care like you have at your church, work for people. And that costs money.
[00:44:21] We saw in the pandemic with many of the quality grants that we were able to give out, that family childcare providers were doing very simple things like adding a vestibule to their home so that they could check children's temperature and talk to families before they welcome them in to the main area where all the other children were. It's something that might not occur to you, but it could be an expand that could mean closing or staying open. And that is why those funds, that stabilization fund was so critical to maintaining and keeping open the millions of slots for children we were on the verge of losing. And it's part of the work that we were doing as those grants expired back at the end of September. We are working to make sure that we can put that money back into the system and keep building on that progress and not go backwards.
Beth [00:45:27] What are the obstacles to getting this done at the federal level?
Katherine Clark [00:45:31] Political will. That's really what the obstacle is. We know how to solve this. We know that other developed countries, on average, invest $15,000 a year in toddlers’ care. In the U.S., we invest on average $500. We just have not made childcare a priority. And what the pandemic began, was really a paradigm shift from this is a private decision that a family makes, usually a mom with a child care provider and they got to figure it out, to having small businesses, restaurants in my area and in my congressional district, to the largest global corporations that come through my office door looking for workforce, looking to bring women back in, looking to keep their talent pool rich. And childcare is the barrier. So, we know we need to do this. We know how to do it, but we're still fighting the resistance to making this investment in American families. But if we want an economy where families can see themselves in it and see opportunity where employers can have the workforce they're looking for and be able to retain them, we have to step forward and get childcare policy caught up to where American families are and what they need.
[00:47:11] And this is exactly who government should be working for. And we have so much research on not only how good this is for the economy of right now, but how great it is for our kids. We know that especially for low-income children, but really any child, that rich preschool and early education is a game changer. And if we can have kids reading, coming into the school system ready to learn, having a rich language exposure, social emotional growth and development, we know they are so much more likely to be reading at third grade level by third grade. And that is just when all the windows are either going to open or close on our kids as they make that transition from learning how to read to reading to learn. And so, this is so well documented. We know the investment at minimum for every dollar we put in pay $7 out. And we just have to develop the political will to make this investment in American families and our kids.
Sarah [00:48:29] I feel that paradigm shift when we talked about it several years ago, the conversation we had was this phase in life everybody feels like they just have to survive and get through. They're just trying to get through it and then it sorts of fades from their memory. But now when you see it, the truly diverse effects across workforces and communities and people are saying, oh, no, this isn't just about that family, this affects everybody. I feel that political will increasing, but I know that there's always more we can do. So, what can our audience do to get involved and to increase that political will?
Katherine Clark [00:49:05] So we are beginning a program, the Affordable Childcare Agenda, which you can find at Affordablchildcare.us. And we're asking people across the country to become citizen co-sponsors that if you believe childcare should be affordable, accessible and pay providers a living wage, then sign on and show that this isn't a Partisan issue, this isn't a red state or blue state issue, this is an issue about American families and lowering their costs and creating a bright future and a really strong economy. And those are issues that as I travel the country, I find everybody's in agreement and they really want government to be focused on that. Like, do you see my family? Do you see our challenges? Do you know that because child care is so expensive, we're putting our groceries and other expenses on credit cards, and that is also squeezing us? And so, people feel like the system is rigged against them because it's rigged against them. And so, we're trying to get this movement and show that it doesn't matter where you live or who you vote for, this is an issue that is important everywhere. And to your point, Sarah, I hear so often from grandparents about the importance of this issue because they are watching their adult children really struggle with raising kids.
Sarah [00:50:49] And filling the holes themselves.
Katherine Clark [00:50:50] And filling the holes themselves. Or feeling guilty that they are not in a position to do that. And so, this is an issue that people really understand that this is an investment, one, in our economy, and that we aren't going to have the robust economy we want without it. And, two, in American families and helping them lower their costs and get to work knowing that their kids are in a safe, quality program.
Beth [00:51:22] I love the concept of a citizen co-sponsor. I signed up today to be one, and it was very fun to see Kentucky light up on the map as soon as I submitted my information. So, thank you so much for giving us a chance to feel like we are making a difference in this space. I think there are so many of us who want to see more action here, and it's awesome to have a way to express that.
Katherine Clark [00:51:46] Well, thank you. Thank you for signing on, Beth.
Beth [00:51:50] And thank you so much for spending time with us here. I hope that you'll come back as these components of your plan are passing, and tell us about that good work happening in Congress. We are really encouraged by everything that you're doing.
Katherine Clark [00:52:03] Well, I would love to come back. And thank you both for really keeping that great mix of challenges ahead of us, but optimism too for the future. And we can do this. And as we said in the beginning, listeners, know your power and know you have the power to make change even when it looks chaotic and broken in Washington. So, I hope everyone listening will become a citizen co-sponsor.
Beth [00:52:32] We will put all of the links to do that in our show notes. Whip Clark, it was an honor to talk with you today.
Katherine Clark [00:52:37] Thank you so much for having me.
[00:52:39] Music Interlude.
Sarah [00:52:48] Thank you so much to Minority Whip Clark for joining us. Now we want to talk about smells. I have something I need to say first. Did you know that we don't have one nose? We have two noses.
Beth [00:53:03] No. I'm going to need you to explain that, please.
Sarah [00:53:05] Well, every nostril is, like, self-contained. Each nostril has its own whole system. I read this thing in The Atlantic that been in my Insta feed for a million years about everything we know about congestion is wrong. And part of it was that we don't have one nose, we have two noses. And when you're congested, it's not mucus, it's swelling. Because they take turns, the each side. I mean, it makes sense. You have two eyes. You have two ears. Why would you have one nose? And so, they kind of take turns protecting us, sort of swelling, absorbing. It'll switch teams and then the other side will take over doing all the things noses do. It kind of blew my mind.
Beth [00:53:45] Yeah, I've got to sit with that for a little bit because I love my sense of smell. It's probably my favorite sense.
Sarah [00:53:52] That's so interesting to me. It's my most neglected sense because for a long time I felt like basically all smells gave me a headache. I've been in Airbnbs where every plug had a Glade Plugin and I literally have to go and unplug them all and put them underneath the sink or I will have a headache the entire time I'm there. And I used to be that way about perfume. Now I can wear perfume, although I do think I have one of my favorite scents that gives me a headache. I just kind of wear it anyway, which is stupid. But I'm super, super sensitive. And I really have gotten better over the last few years about appreciating it is really nice to have a nice candle or a smell, but I just feel like the line between a nice smell that adds to my life and a headache is very thin.
Beth [00:54:37] Well, that's part of what I want to talk about here, because as someone who loves scents, I want to be respectful of the fact that not everyone does and that there is a real range of sensitivity to scent out there. I love a smell because it just anchors me to a sense of place. When I can smell something, I feel like I'm really here. You know what I mean? I love being in the garden. The smell of a tomato plant, just my dopamine goes through the roof. I just love that smell. There is a tree in my neighbor's yard every time I walk by, it just gives me this really sweet fragrance, and I just suddenly kind of feel my feet planted on the earth a little bit more. Like, I'm really here. I love a candle in my kitchen. I work with a candle burning on my desk. And I have a different day when I don't light that candle. It's like if I don't light that candle, it tells me a lot about where my stress levels are.
Sarah [00:55:32] Well, I just think that you've combined two different things out here that I think are worthy of distinguishing, which is natural smells and artificial smells. Not all smells are created equal. I like natural smells. My struggle with a candle sometimes is that it will mask the smell of actual food cooking. Like, it will overwhelm the smell of food cooking. And I think I've come around on perfume because now I think this is not an artificial smell. This is a chemical process that is meant to smell. But like a Glade Plugin that supposed to smell like laundry, that's just an artificial smell. That, to me, is like a totally different thing. And I think it has to be a really good candle to be not an artificial smell. Do you see what I'm saying? Those two things feel different to me.
Beth [00:56:25] I do, and I don't burn a candle in the kitchen while I'm cooking. It sits there, like, throughout the day. But if I'm cooking something, I want to smell what I'm cooking, for sure.
Sarah [00:56:34] What are you doing? Like, a baking candle? A candle that's just reproducing a real smell?
Beth [00:56:39] Well, I like essential oil kind of smells. I do like things that smell more natural, like it's occurring in nature. I don't want a birthday cake candle. So, I totally agree. I think it's so closely related to taste for me. I don't want banana flavored candy, but I love a banana or banana bread or a banana cake. So, there is that natural artificial distinction. And I think some artificial scents are better done than others. Often, the laundry scents I do kind of like. I think that many of those are done pretty well.
Sarah [00:57:15] Well, I just think too I get in my head, and I'm really trying to disentangle some of my former crunchy mom ideas about chemicals and toxicity from science and reality. I'm just going to be honest.
Beth [00:57:30] Yeah, it's tricky.
Sarah [00:57:31] But I do think burning a candle is not great for you. This is a thing that I have heard and not in a Facebook group, but from doctors and scientists. It can contribute to a lot of stuff in the air. Somebody was telling me somebody came to paint their house and the guy was like, "Do you burn candles?" She's like, "Yeah, all the time." He's like, "Yeah, I can see it on your walls." I mean, if it's shown up in the walls, it's definitely coming into our bodies. Not that we don't have excellent filtration systems; I understand that we do. But I think about that, I think about is this actually good for me? Or maybe it's just neutral is the best you could ask for. But I do think it's contributes in ways that are important too to mental health and mood. So, I don't know, I'm just trying to balance all those things.
Beth [00:58:17] I never, ever think about whether I'm being harmed by burning a candle ever, and don't want to. So, I'm going to delete that from my brain, even though it is a good point and a fair one.
Sarah [00:58:27] Well, I think if you warm it-- I have a warmer.
Beth [00:58:29] I have a warmer as well.
Sarah [00:58:31] I think it's the burn, not the warm. So, I think if you're warming it, you're good.
Beth [00:58:36] I do have a warmer and I like it. It's so tricky though because I love the smell of extinguishing a lit candle. Like that little bit of smoke from the fire being extinguished, I love that smell too. I love to look in the glow of a candle burning. I do, though, think a lot about if I'm having people over one of my first instinct is to light a candle, because I think it feels so nice and cozy and it looks beautiful and to me it smells great. But then I get in my head, like, should I ask people before I do that? I just need some guidance. I need to crowdsource some guidance on scent etiquette, because I understand that for people who don't like smells, they really, really have a strong reaction. My mom really struggles with scent.
Sarah [00:59:21] Well, I always light a candle in my bathroom because I do think there are some smells people really don't want to smell. And I think in the cost-benefit analysis of a bathroom that a lot of people are going to use in a short period of time, the candles are a good way to go. But as far as perfume, we're going to Japan this summer and they say you're not supposed to wear perfume to a sushi restaurant because it affects the way the sushi can taste for you and other people. Obviously, this is a culture that's very interested and consumed by the communal experience, which I appreciate and I'm excited to explore. And I think that's important. I mean, this the smell maxxing thing that the teen boys are doing-- mine don't, thank God, because I would shut that down. Nobody needs that much body Cologne overwhelming you. But also, they got to learn. You know what I mean? They just got to do their thing and learn. I struggle with the difference between we cannot calibrate to everyone all the time, and also, I hate you do you. And I want people to be more aware of those around us. So, I'm just talking about both sides of my mouth about mostly everything, but even smell.
Beth [01:00:24] I would struggle if I had a teenage boy who wanted to spend $300 on a bottle of Cologne. I struggle with the skincare products though-- and we've talked about this before-- with girls. Jane wears Sole de Janeiro every single day. Every single day. It smells great, but it is strong. And sometimes I wonder, like, does anybody in your class struggle with this? Do your teachers hate this? What's going on? What are the community guidelines? I never wear perfume because I love the smell of like my shampoo and my deodorant and my curl mousse. And I just feel like if I add anything else to what I've already got going on, it might be too much. And I hate the thought of being too much and bothering someone with my personal scent.
Sarah [01:01:05] Yeah, I don't wear lotion. I know that's crazy to some people, but I don't really use lotion. And I don't use that many hair products, although I do have some that I like to smell. But I just got into perfume. I think I got my first sample in my Liberty Advent calendar and they're like little bottles. And there I've like collected quite a few at this point from this different Advent calendars. And I love them. And I think it's like such a great thing. And it's really weird though because I smell it, but I don't think you smell it much longer after the first hour or two hours I have it on. It goes away really fast. I think there's a bigger conversation here about etiquette, which it seems like no one cares about it anymore, so I don't know why we'd care at this point. Now I really sound like an old lady.
Beth [01:01:48] Does no one care about etiquette? What do you mean?
Sarah [01:01:51] No. Well, I live in a house with four boys. I'm including my husband in this because he's always, like, what does it matter if I put my elbows on the table? Who cares if we wear a hat at the table? This is all silly. We made it up. And that's not how I feel. I feel like this idea that we are keeping in mind always how our actions affect other people because, again, we are in community with each other doesn't mean we silence ourselves. It doesn't mean we change everything. It doesn't mean we bend over backwards to erase ourselves from the situation. Obviously, that's not what I'm talking about. But I do think there's a sense of like, wear what you want, act how you want, say what you want, put the F word across a baseball hat and wear it to a preschool graduation. Who cares?
Beth [01:02:42] I do not like that. I will just go on record citing I do not like their profanity on bumper stickers, on flags, on t-shirts in all spaces, at all times. I don't mean to be a prude, but it drives me bananas.
Sarah [01:02:56] And also there's no sense of using that word where children are around all the time. Listen, I cuss. No doubt about it, I cuss in front of my kids. But it does feel like it's like elevated. And so, we're going to talk about smells, and people don't care about putting the F word on a t-shirt. You know what I mean? Like, what are we doing? Does it even matter anymore? I'm not sure.
Beth [01:03:19] Yeah. I did get, I think, at your suggestion, the Brooke Romney calendar of manners for teens.
Sarah [01:03:27] It's so good.
Beth [01:03:27] And my girls both read it and we talk about it, and it is excellent. I feel like it walks that line really well of a modern approach to saying we are still looking for ways to be really respectful to other people.
Sarah [01:03:42] And there's one on there that I think is like how you smell matters. Your smell matters.
Beth [01:03:47] Yes. Your personal hygiene is really important.
Sarah [01:03:49] Yeah. Look, she should sell that and it should not be for teens. It should just be for everybody all the time. We should all be flipping through that on the weekly because it is so good. And she really does balance that sense of, like, we are not asking you to silence your individuality, but you are an individual in a community and how you act and what you say and how you smell affects other people. And we have to acknowledge that. And, look, it's just hard. Again, it's hard in a marriage. It's hard in parenting. It's hard in a church congregation to balance. What does it mean if we disagree? Where do we go forward? How do we hold that I can't control you and also what you do affects me? Like, it just drove out there, man.
Beth [01:04:37] So maybe I'm trying to channel what would she write about this conversation that we're having? Maybe the answer is, if I invite you into my home, then I want to give you the best of my home to my ability. And so, if that involves a candle, fine. But then if you ask me politely to extinguish it because it bothers you, then I say, "Of course, you're my guest. I want you to be comfortable here." And that's the best we can do.
Sarah [01:05:05] Well, I would an add additional layer. If you're coming over as my dinner guest and it's like you are the guest of honor, and you want me to extinguish it- 100%. But I think it gets a little wobbly if it's like an open house and so you're one of many. You see what I'm saying?
Beth [01:05:23] I do.
Sarah [01:05:23] Then I think it's a little more wobbly for that. That's a tougher one.
Beth [01:05:28] And maybe it just depends on whether we're talking about preference versus like a severe physical reaction.
Sarah [01:05:36] Allergy or something.
Beth [01:05:37] Yeah.
[01:05:37] Nicholas is always concerned with people's allergies and food when they come over and he thinks about it for big events like an open house and individual things. And that's the thing. He thinks like the hat stuff is stupid, but it's not that he's not unconcerned with people. And I do think that some etiquette rules just strike people as silly, when really, if we scratch at it, it does get to something bigger. It's just hard to see sometimes, and it's certainly hard to explain to children. Why should we do this? I don't know, because. Just because. Go ask my mom. She'll tell you.
Beth [01:06:08] And I think that that might be some of the problem. I'm thinking about how one of the worst things I was ever asked to do at work-- not the worst, but it bothered me. Was a perfume policing situation. Where two people sit near each other and one of them is complaining about the other's perfume, but they come to me as a management figure to address it. And I hated that so much because I really wanted the person to directly say in a non-judgmental way, "Hey, this just really bothers me. I wish it didn't. It gives me a headache. It's so awkward to ask you this, but do you mind to stop wearing it?" And then if the person responded negatively, I could get involved. But I hated that sense of like the principle has been called now, and the person wearing the perfume feels like they're doing something wrong by wearing the perfume when it's not that. And I think so much etiquette is like that, where there is something behind it, but we never articulate what it is. We just come from this really judgy place about it. And so maybe if we can do a better job of saying, like, here's what's hitting me wrong about this, do you mind? And I'm not saying you messed up. It's just we're incompatible. My sense of style and yours are not aligned, so can we make a change?
Sarah [01:07:28] Listen, back to my favorite Instagram channel, we are man enough, in the Friday roundup this week there was like a-- it looked like a like a nest camera. Okay, so it's at somebody's front door. There's this very elderly, frail looking woman, and she is standing at the door with this man.
We are man enough- Instagram Clip
Female [01:07:46] Can you turn those lights off?
Male [01:07:48] Which ones?
Female [01:07:50] The ones that are keeping me awake at night.
Male [01:07:52] Journey, we went through this before, sweetheart.
Female [01:07:54] What?
Male [01:07:54] We went through this before. The rope lights are not in your window.
Female [01:07:59] Honey, I have to put pillows over my windows so I can sleep.
Male [01:08:03] The cops came and they looked at the rope lights. They said they're not shining in your window. But I'll do you this. I will turn them off at 10:00 O'clock at night. Okay?
Female [01:08:12] Is that okay?
Male [01:08:12] Yes, ma'am.
Female [01:08:14] I'm sorry.
Male [01:08:14] No, you're fine. I got you.
Female [01:08:17] I don't mean to be a mean neighbor, and I want you as my neighbor.
Male [01:08:21] I got it, Journey. All right? See what I think it is, Journey, I think you just need to come over when you're lonely. We can talk and have some food and some wine. How about that?
Female [01:08:34] I'm sorry.
Male [01:08:35] And if I'm off and you got nothing to do, you can come on the patio, bring your bottle of wine, come chill with your boy, I got you. All right. I love you, Journey.
Female [01:08:44] I'm sorry.
Male [01:08:44] No, don't worry about it, sweetheart.
Sarah [01:08:47] It was so touching. I just sat there and wept. I was like, what would the world be like if every time somebody said, "You're bothering me," well you say, "I hear you. I don't want to bother you, but maybe it's something else. Can I help you with that? I'd love to help you with that." It was the most beautiful thing. And, look, I know we all don't have the capacity to help and be gracious and kind all the time. But hopefully when we don't, somebody else does for us and vice versa, and it all comes out in the wash. And, man, is it beautiful to see when it happens.
Beth [01:09:38] It is. And it just requires you not expecting to be attacked to be able to respond that way. It requires a gracious interpretation of the people around you to have that kind of reaction. And I think that ties back to Harrison Butker, too. That's part of why I haven't really wanted to engage with it, because I'm just not walking around looking to be offended or pissed off. I really don't want to spend time with things that provoke that defensive everyone's against me instinct in me. Because I have that. And when I go into stress and feel that way, it just brings out the worst parts in me. And so, I think that is so related to this conversation about smells, because the way that I ended up dealing with things at work, whether it was this person has B.O. or their perfume is bothering me, or they're dressed inappropriately for work or whatever, every time I had a conversation with someone about something like that, I would say, "I don't want to make this weird, and I know that something about it is going to feel uncomfortable. And I really want to have this conversation where you feel liked and respected because I do like and respect you." But you sometimes just have to go out of your way to say, like, I am not criticizing you because so many of us at different moments in our lives are so sensitive to being criticized by other people. It is so hard to find those folks who constantly make you feel like, come in, of course I like you. Of course I care about you. Of course you're welcome to hang out with me. You don't have to come over and be mad at me about the lights in order for us to do that.
Sarah [01:11:16] I think it's just everybody's doing the best they can. I know some people hear that and it sets them all the way off. I know when I say Harrison Butker is doing the best he can, nobody wants to hear that. I get it. It's a sucky role. I just haven't found a better one, guys. I pick out a list of 2 to 3 people-- yes, Phyllis Schlafly is one of them-- who I've decided are not doing their best, I channel at them because there are no cost of that. That's my mental health tip. Pick a famous dead person, direct it towards them, let it out there because everybody who's still alive is doing the best they can. And some people's best is dangerous and some people's best is hateful. But like I said, I just haven't found anything that doesn't lessen me except to remember that they are human being, at the end of the day, deserving of the grace we all are. Whether they smell, whether they're sexist, whatever it is. And that's why we love all of you because we know that you give us endless grace. We're doing the best we can as we try to talk about everything from Harrison Butker, to the daycare crisis, to air freshener and smell maxxing. It's all about the human experience out there, guys. So, thank you for joining us. We hope you all will check out the Affordable Childcare Agenda and become a citizen co-sponsor, just like we have. For a while, Beth, there were just two people in Kentucky and it was you and me. It was so fun.
Beth [01:12:49] Felt so good, didn't it?
Sarah [01:12:50] It did. I like to be in first. We also hope that you'll join us on May 30th for our Nuanced Life virtual event, where I know much of what we've talked about here today will probably come up again. Tickets for that are on sale now, and you can get them through the link in our show notes. And until Friday, keep it nuanced, y'all.
[01:13:20] Music Interlude.
Sarah: Pantsuit Politics is produced by Studio D Podcast Production.
Beth: Alise Napp is our managing director. Maggie Penton is our director of Community Engagement. Sarah: Xander Singh is the composer of our theme music with inspiration from original work by Dante Lima. Beth: Our show is listener-supported. Special thanks to our executive producers. Executive Producers: Martha Bronitsky. Ali Edwards. Janice Elliott. Sarah Greenup. Julie Haller. Tiffany Hasler. Emily Holladay. Katie Johnson. Katina Zuganelis Kasling. Barry Kaufman. Katherine Vollmer. Laurie LaDow. Lily McClure. Linda Daniel. The Pentons. 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. Jen Ross. Sabrina Drago. Becca Dorval. Christina Quartararo. Shannon Frawley. Jessica Whitehead. Samantha Chalmers. Crystal Kemp. Megan Hart. The Lebo Family. The Adair Family.
Sarah: Jeff Davis. Melinda Johnston. Michelle Wood. Nichole Berklas. Paula Bremer and Tim Miller.