📋 Show Notes:

🎙️ Episode 6: Why Is My Doctor Gaslighting Me?

Subtitle: Advocating for Women’s Health

Cristina and the moms open up about their own experiences with being dismissed by healthcare providers—and dig into the root causes behind it. From underfunded research to outdated gender assumptions, they explore why the medical system often fails women and how we can start to shift it.

With insight and solidarity, they offer tools for self-advocacy, tips for symptom tracking, and full permission to break up with a doctor who isn’t listening.

🗣️ What We Talk About:

Why women’s symptoms are often dismissed

Perimenopause, menopause, and hormonal health myths

The shocking research gap in women’s healthcare

Why only 2% of funding goes to women-specific conditions

How race and income impact access to care

The male body as the medical “default”

The emotional toll of being gaslit in a clinical setting

How to document symptoms and advocate for yourself

Why it’s okay (and powerful) to fire your doctor

📚 References:

Hand Washing. “It Took Surprisingly Long for Doctors to Figure out the Benefits of Hand Washing.” History.Com, A&E Television Networks, 15 Apr. 2025, www.history.com/articles/hand-washing-disease-infection. 

Lack of Funding for Women’s Health Research. Smith, Kerri. Nature News, Nature Publishing Group, 3 May 2023, www.nature.com/immersive/d41586-023-01475-2/index.html. 

https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/04/24/nx-s1-5376473/hhs-restores-funding-for-womens-health-initiative 

Gender Bias in Medicine. Koven, Suzanne. “How Gender Bias in Medicine Has Shaped Women’s Health.” Harvard Medicine Magazine, 14 Mar. 2025, magazine.hms.harvard.edu/articles/how-gender-bias-medicine-has-shaped-womens-health. 

Health Equity. Baciu A, Negussie Y, Geller A, et al., editors Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity.National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine; Health and Medicine Division; Board on Population Health and Public Health Practice; Committee on Community-Based Solutions to Promote Health Equity in the United States.Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 2017 Jan 11.

📚 Resources:

Joint Commission: Patient Advocacy Checklist

The Care Partner Project:  Patient Advocacy Resources 

💜 Women’s Health Advocacy Organizations:

Center for Reproductive Rights - A legal advocacy organization dedicated to advancing reproductive rights as fundamental human rights, with work on abortion, maternal health, and IVF access.

The Menopause Society (formerly North American Menopause Society) - Empowers healthcare professionals to improve women's health during the menopause transition through education and resources.

Let's Talk Menopause - A 501(c)(3) nonprofit providing education and raising awareness about perimenopause and menopause through community-building initiatives.

National Organization for Women (NOW) - A long-standing feminist organization that works on reproductive rights, affirming them as "issues of life and death for women, not mere matters of choice."

Reproductive Freedom for All (formerly NARAL Pro-Choice America Foundation) - Focuses on providing factual information about abortion access and reproductive healthcare.

SisterReach - A grassroots organization supporting the reproductive autonomy of women and teens of color, poor women, rural women, and LGBTQ+ people in the South.

International Planned Parenthood Federation - A global provider of sexual and reproductive health services and advocate for reproductive rights.

Women Deliver - A global advocacy organization championing gender equality and the health and rights of girls and women.

Fòs Feminista - An international alliance for sexual and reproductive justice working across borders.

👯‍♀️ Meet Your Hosts:

Cristina Sansone – Public health pro turned full-time stay-at-home mom of three  

Jamie Dennison – Corporate exec and mom of two

Jess Kahn Marks – Former engineer and mom of two

Tiffany Hodges – Writer, actor, filmmaker, and mom of one

🔗 Follow Along:

📱 IG: @momsamongotherthings

🌐 Website: mommyhasquestions.com

🎧 Presented by: momsamongotherthings.com

🔑 Keywords:

women’s health, gaslighting, perimenopause, menopause, medical bias, hormone imbalance, advocacy, feminist healthcare, racial disparities, gender gaps in medicine, symptom dismissal, invisible illness, firing your doctor, women-centered care

📋 Show Notes:
🎙️ Episode 5: Can I Be a Trad Wife AND a Feminist?
Subtitle: Tradition vs. Progress

Cristina and the moms unpack the tension between embracing traditional domestic roles and holding true to feminist values. Is being a stay-at-home mom anti-feminist—or can it be a powerful choice in a patriarchal system? From historical context to social media portrayals, they dig into what it really means to live your values while raising kids and running a household. With insight, laughter, and some surprising admissions, they push back on black-and-white thinking and champion a more nuanced feminism.

🗣️ What We Talk About:

- What it means to be a “trad wife” in 2025

- Can traditional gender roles align with feminism?

- Cristina’s accidental trad wife journey

- How social media glorifies domesticity (and at what cost)

- The waves of feminism and why history matters

- How invisible labor still defines motherhood

- Why men need to be included in feminist conversations

- Feminism as freedom: more choice, less shame

📚References:

All the Single Ladies Traister, Rebecca. All the Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation. Simon & Schuster, 2016.

Fair Play Rodsky, Eve. Fair Play: A Game-Changing Solution for When You Have Too Much to Do (and More Life to Live). G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2019.

The Tradwife Trend Rascoe, Ayesha. "'Trad wives' are trending. What does that say about feminism today?" NPR, 28 Jan. 2024.

History of Woman Suffrage  Stanton, Elizabeth Cady, et al., editors. "An Account of Women's Experiences at the June 1840 World's Anti-Slavery Convention in London, England." History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 1, Fowler and Wells, 1881, pp. 53-54, 61-62.

Invisible Labor and the Value of Stay-at-Home Work Huddleston, Cameron. "Here's How Much Economists Say Stay-at-Home Moms Should Get Paid." Nasdaq, 10 May 2023.

History of Feminism History.com Editors. "Women's History Milestones: A Timeline." HISTORY, A&E Television Networks, 4 Mar. 2025.

Women’s Rights Movement within Anti-Slavery Activism Sklar, Kathryn Kish. Women's Rights Emerges within the Anti-Slavery Movement, 1830-1870: A Brief History with Documents. The Bedford Series in History and Culture. Bedford/St. Martin's, 2015.

Definition of Feminism “Marie Shear.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 11 March 2025.

👯‍♀️ Meet Your Hosts:

Cristina Sansone – Public health pro turned full-time stay-at-home mom of three  

Jamie Dennison – Corporate exec and mom of two

Jess Kahn Marks – Former engineer and mom of two

Tiffany Hodges – Writer, actor, filmmaker, and mom of one

🔗 Follow Along:

📱 IG: @momsamongotherthings
🌐 Website: mommyhasquestions.com
🎧 Presented by: momsamongotherthings.com

🔑 Keywords:

feminism, trad wife, stay-at-home mom, choice feminism, invisible labor, gender roles, social media, patriarchy, waves of feminism, motherhood, domestic labor, TikTok trad wives, modern feminism, male allyship, feminist parenting, mom identity

📋 Show Notes:

🎙️ Episode 4: Is Social Media Bad for Moms Too?

 Control the Scroll

Cristina and the moms explore the complicated relationship between motherhood and social media. They dig into the emotional trap of doom-scrolling, the illusion of online “self-care,” and the bigger cultural forces shaping how moms spend their time and attention. From confession to clarity, this episode is an empowering call to become more intentional with how we engage online.

🗣️ What We Talk About:

- Why we reach for our phones in stressful moments

- How social media creates a false sense of connection

- The mental health toll of comparison and overconsumption

- Setting screen time boundaries for ourselves (and our kids)

- Using mindfulness and breathwork instead of mindless scrolling

- The power of critical thinking and intentional digital habits

- What it really means to “control the scroll”

📚 References:

Digital Minimalism Newport, Cal. Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World. Portfolio, 2019.

How to Do Nothing Odell, Jenny. How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy. Melville House, 2019. 

The Moment of Lift Gates, Melinda, The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World. Flatiron Books, 2019.

How We Got to Now Johnson, Steven. How We Got to Now: Six Innovations That Made the Modern World. Riverhead Books, 2014

The Social Dilemma Orlowski, Jeff, director. The Social Dilemma. Exposure Labs, Argent Pictures, The Space Program, 2020. Netflix, www.netflix.com/title/81254224.

Talk to People on the Telephone Mull, Amanda. "Talk to People on the Telephone." The Atlantic, 16 Sept. 2019, www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/09/ring-ring-ring/598129/.

Does Passive Social Media Use Harm Well-Being? Meier, Adrian, and Hannes-Vincent Krause. "Does Passive Social Media Use Harm Well-Being?: An Adversarial Review." Journal of Media Psychology: Theories, Methods, and Applications, vol. 35, no. 3, 2023, pp. 169-180. https://doi.org/10.1027/1864-1105/a000358.

Screen Time and Well-Being Twenge, Jean M., et al. "Associations Between Screen Time and Lower Psychological Well-Being Among Children and Adolescents." Preventive Medicine Reports, vol. 12, 2018, pp. 271-283. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pmedr.2018.10.003.

👯‍♀️ Meet Your Hosts:

Cristina Sansone – Public health pro turned full-time stay-at-home mom of three

Jamie Dennison – Corporate exec and mom of two

Jess Kahn Marks – Former engineer and mom of two

Tiffany Hodges – Writer, actor, filmmaker, and mom of one

🔗 Follow Along:

📱 IG: @momsamongotherthings

🌐 Website: mommyhasquestions.com

🎧 Presented by: momsamongotherthings.com

🔑 Keywords:

social media, motherhood, doomscrolling, digital boundaries, mental health, self-care vs self-sabotage, algorithm anxiety, phone addiction, feminist parenting, emotional resilience, comparison trap, mindfulness for moms, tech habits

📋 Show Notes:

🎙️ Episode 3: Why Is It Hard to Ask for Help?

Subtitle: Partner Dialogues

Cristina and the moms get real about the challenges of communicating needs, balancing childcare, and renegotiating value at home. From societal pressure to internalized guilt, they explore why asking for help feels so loaded and how to reframe it without resentment. This episode is a heartfelt, funny, and hope-filled dive into the art of advocating for yourself.

🗣️ What We Talk About:

- Why it's so hard to ask for help

- How stay-at-home work gets undervalued

- Money, power, and perception in partnerships

- Emotional labor and mental load

- Gendered social conditioning and communication barriers

- Practical strategies for better conversations 

- How to validate your own worth beyond motherhood

📚 References:

Fair Play Rodsky, Eve. Fair Play: A Game-Changing Solution for When You Have Too Much to Do (and More Life to Live). G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2019. 

Impulse Purchasing By Gender 1 "Male vs. Female Spending Statistics." ElectroIQ, https://electroiq.com/stats/male-vs-female-spending-statistics/#General_Male_vs_Female_Spending_Statistics. Accessed 30 Apr. 2025.

Impulse Purchasing By Gender 2 "Male vs. Female Spending Statistics." FinanceBuzz, https://financebuzz.com/male-vs-female-spending-statistics. Accessed 30 Apr. 2025.

Gender and Emotion Expression Russell, James A. "What Is an Emotion? Psychological Construction in the Service of Making Emotion Meaning." Emotion Review, vol. 6, no. 4, 2014, pp. 298-307, https://doi.org/10.1177/1754073914544408. Accessed 30 Apr. 2025.

The Gender Stereotyping of Emotions Plant, E. Ashby, et al. "The Gender Stereotyping of Emotions." Psychology of Women Quarterly, vol. 24, no. 1, 2000, pp. 81-92, https://devinelab.psych.wisc.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/1383/2020/04/The-gender-stereotyping-of-emotions.pdf. Accessed 30 Apr. 2025.

Stay At Home Moms' 'Economic Value' Curry, Benjamin. "Here's How Much Economists Say Stay-At-Home Moms Should Get Paid." Nasdaq, 8 Mar. 2022, www.nasdaq.com/articles/heres-how-much-economists-say-stay-at-home-moms-should-get-paid. Accessed 30 Apr. 2025.

Gendered Labour Market "History Helps Us Understand Gender Differences in the Labour Market." The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, 9 Oct. 2023, www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2023/10/popular-economicsciencesprize2023.pdf. Accessed 30 Apr. 2025.

👯‍♀️ Meet Your Hosts:

Cristina Sansone – Public health pro turned full-time stay-at-home mom of three

Jamie Dennison – Corporate exec and mom of two

Jess Kahn Marks – Former engineer and mom of two

Tiffany Hodges – Writer, actor, filmmaker, and mom of one

🔗 Follow Along:

Podcast IG: @momsamongotherthings

Website: mommyhasquestions.com

Presented by: momsamongotherthings.com

🔑 Key Themes:

mental load, motherhood, childcare, communication, emotional labor, stay-at-home moms, working moms, gender roles, marriage, asking for help, Fair Play, Eve Rodsky, invisible labor, partnerships, feminist parenting, modern families, self-worth

🎙️ Episode 2: Why Am I Drowning In Laundry?

Subtitle: Loads on Loads

Cristina has 5 baskets of laundry that have been on her couch for a week. This leads to a much deeper conversation between the moms about the invisible labor women are still carrying. From 1950s housewife propaganda to the real-life stress of asking your partner to please just switch the load, this episode takes a funny, honest, and slightly ranty look at what’s really going on behind the laundry basket and all the loads: mental, emotional, and literal.

We unpack it all: gender roles, Eve Rodsky’s Fair Play, suburban vs. city mom laundry problems, and how the so-called “progress” of equality still leaves a lot of socks unmatched.

🧺 What We Talk About:

The never-ending pile: physical and metaphorical

Why women are still “the default” at home

Capitalism, gender norms, and the 1950s housewife fantasy

GI Bill + suburban development and how it pushed women back in the home

Self-medicating housewives, and the pressure to smile through it

Fair Play and how to actually divide labor in modern families

📚References

1990's Nick at Nite Programming u/mschanandlerbong91. "Do you remember the old days of Nick at Nite?" Reddit, r/sitcoms, 30 March 2025, https://www.reddit.com/r/sitcoms/comments/1f4hxbn/do_you_remember_the_old_days_of_nick_at_nite/. Accessed 21 April 2025.

What the 1950s were really like “What the 1950s Were Really Like”. Talking Politics With Mom. Episode 03. https://youtu.be/Mt-gPjjQw1M. Accessed 21 April 2025.

"Sure he was great but remember she did everything backwards in heels" "Cartoon Image - Bob Thaves, Frank and Ernest Cartoon." Goodreads, https://images.gr-assets.com/quotes/1382202485p8/192006.jpg. Accessed 21 April 2025.

Equality and GDP Correlation European Investment Bank. "Gender Equality and Power." EIB.org, https://www.eib.org/en/stories/gender-equality-power. Accessed 21 April 2025.

Labor Distribution in the Home Fair Play Policy. "Can We Solve for the Unequal Division of Domestic Labor." FairPlayPolicy.org, https://fairplaypolicy.org/research/can-we-solve-for-the-unequal-division-of-domestic-labor. Accessed 21 April 2025.

Fair Play Rodsky, Eve. Fair Play: A Game-Changing Solution for When You Have Too Much to Do (and More Life to Live). G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2019. 

The GI Bill "G.I. Bill." Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G.I._Bill. Accessed 21 April 2025.

Women in the 1950’s workforce PBS. “Wome and Work After World War II.” PBS.org. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/tupperware-work/. Accessed 21 April 2025.

What Really Made 1950s Housewives So Miserable.  Gershon, Livia. JSTOR DAILY, 8 June 2017, daily.jstor.org/what-really-made-1950s-housewives-so-miserable/. Accessed 23 April 2025.

You Go to My Head: Women's Prescription Pill Use in Postwar America. Brown, Erin K., (2022). Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository. 8727. https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/8727. Accessed 23 April 2025.

The Marriage Bar “The Marriage Bar.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage_bar. Accessed 21 April 2025.

Breaking Down Patriarchy "Breaking Down Patriarchy." Breaking Down Patriarchy, https://breakingdownpatriarchy.com/podcast/. Accessed 23 April 2025.

👯‍♀️ Meet Your Hosts:

Cristina Sansone – Public health pro turned full-time stay-at-home mom of three  

Jamie Dennison – Corporate exec and mom of two

Jess Kahn Marks – Former engineer and mom of two

Tiffany Hodges – Writer, actor, filmmaker, and mom of one

🔗 Follow Along:

Podcast IG: @momsamongotherthings

Website: mommyhasquestions.com

Presented by: momsamongotherthings.com

Key Themes:

mental load, motherhood, household chores, invisible labor, gender roles, Fair Play, Eve Rodsky, GI Bill, feminist history, suburban life, emotional labor, laundry, patriarchy, motherhood podcast, modern parenting, stay-at-home moms, working moms

🎙️ Episode 1: How Did I Get Here? |The Minivan Crisis

Ever looked around your life and thought, “Whose minivan is this… and how did I become the one driving it?” Same.

In this premiere episode of Mommy Has Questions, Cristina Sansone opens up about how she went from public health professional in New York City to stay-at-home mom of three in Arkansas — and the identity crisis that came with it. She’s joined by her three NYC mom friends, the co-founders of Among Other Things, as they dive headfirst into the complicated mess of modern motherhood.

From the pressure to “do it all” to the outdated 1950s ideals still hanging over parenting culture today, these four women are done pretending. It’s time to question everything.

💬 What We Talk About:

The invisible grief of losing your former identity

Patriarchal parenting norms we didn’t agree to

Why “having it all” feels like a setup

Community, collective care, and how we start showing up for each other

The power of honest conversation (with humor of course)

📚 References:

Of Willa Cather’s Lasting Love For the Frontier by Catherine Pond 

What the 1950s were really like | Talking Politics With Mom Ep. 3

👯‍♀️ Meet Your Hosts:

Cristina Sansone – Public health pro turned full-time stay-at-home mom of three  

Jamie Dennison – Corporate exec and mom of two

Jess Kahn Marks – Former engineer and mom of two

Tiffany Hodges – Writer, actor, filmmaker, and mom of one | @thetiffanyhodges

🔗 Follow Along:

Podcast IG: @momsamongotherthings

Website: mommyhasquestions.com

Presented by: momsamongotherthings.com

Key Themes:

motherhood, parenting, societal norms, women empowerment, cultural expectations, community support, mental load, caregiving, shared responsibilities, personal identity

With heart, analysis and experience, Mommy Has Questions examines the evolution of motherhood and challenges expectations to create a world where we all thrive. Your exhaustion isn't personal, it's cultural. 

Join Cristina, a career professional turned stay-at-home mom, and the Among Other Things co-founders as they connect your daily overwhelm to decades of policies that depend on mothers doing it all.  This is where shame becomes solidarity, where private struggles reveal public patterns, and where women discover they're not broken - the system is. 

Mommy Has Questions is presented by Among Other Things, a vibrant moms collective dedicated to driving cultural change for all women. Visit MomsAmongOtherThings.com for more information.