We Made This Political Podcast

Ep. 42: The Civic Art of Parenting


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In the final episode of their parenting series, hosts Laura Forcum and Lauren Hall recap conversations with Peter Gray, Darby Saxby, and Helen Roy, focusing on what it would mean to take care seriously in a culture that undervalues and genders care. They discuss how care has become siloed and often invisible through professionalization, regulation, and divided civic spaces, with COVID highlighting schools as major providers of childcare. They argue that weakened communal networks and heightened risk aversion reduce alloparenting, limit children’s practice navigating different rules, and contribute to passivity and reliance on authority. Linking self-knowledge, intuition, and agency to civic health, they emphasize cultivating agency through habits, discomfort, chores, and solitude, aiming for flourishing rather than comfort, and close by recommending prior episodes and sharing family milestones.

00:00 Final Episode Setup

01:37 Why Care Matters

04:44 Punch the Monkey Lesson

10:10 COVID Revealed Childcare

12:18 Care in Public Spaces

15:18 Small Town Responsibility

17:29 Losing Care Skills

21:03 Regulation Makes Help Hard

24:58 Alloparenting and Risk

27:09 Discipline and Flexibility

32:58 Self Trust and Authority

35:46 Judging Law as Citizens

37:57 Intuition and Power

39:37 Agency Against Authority

43:49 Systems That Train Compliance

46:21 Civic Solitude and Boredom

49:22 Parenting for Values

59:06 Flourishing Not Comfort

01:01:11 Civic Mindset at Home

01:02:46 Wrap Up and Gratitude



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We Made This Political PodcastBy Lura Forcum and Lauren Hall